Goducate … Go And Educate! – Page 81 – Helping Asians Help Themselves

2014-03-112014-06-09

Goducate offers educational tours at Goducate Training Center

Goducate’s aim is to help the needy help themselves. So it follows that Goducate should help itself—ie, by aiming for self-sufficiency. Thus the Goducate Training Center (GTC) in Iloilo has not only facilities for training purposes but also holiday accommodation and recreational facilities that could be let out to the public. The recreational facilities include a swimming pool, a fishing pond, a zipline, a rock-climbing wall, and a fish spa, as well as many hectares of land for walks and games.

One group that was attracted by the facilities at the GTC was schools. Initially the schools conducted their own program, paying the entrance fee and the fee for whatever facilities they used. However, from June 2013, we started to market educational tours at PhP 150 ($3.35) per head for 30-45 min talks on various aspects of agriculture and farming that Goducate trainees are taught. The topics covered include basic botany, vermiculture, hydroponics, the rice-fish model of rearing fish in rice fields, container gardening, and characteristics of farm animals. The talks are geared for different age groups. They are interactive, with students being invited to use their senses and to participate in accompanying activities. For example, they can taste the Stevia leaf (a sweetener or sugar substitute), spray vermitea (a fertilizer made from worm castings), pot up plants, or feed animals. Included in the educational tour package is a GTC souvenir of either a potted plant or a key chain.

75% of the schools visiting GTC are kindergartens and day-care centers and 25% are elementary or high schools. In the first 2 months of this year 7 elementary or high schools, and 20 groups of kindergartens and day-care centers visited GTC. One of the groups consisted of 24 day-care centers, with a total of 750 pupils. Another very recent tour catered for a mixed group of 150 parents and students ranging in age from 6-40. Of the 27 lots of visitors, 11 took up the educational package and the rest conducted their own program.

Handling African night crawlers used for making compost

After mixing soil and pottting up plants

2014-03-072014-03-10

Goducate starts Happy Happy English classes at foreign workers’ dorm in Singapore

In mid-January, Goducate launched Happy Happy English, a program designed for foreign workers living in large dormitories in Singapore. The program starts with a few weeks of “edutainment” consisting of videoshows of different aspects of Singapore together with some stage entertainment and the teaching of a few English phrases related to the videoshow (see Jan 24 blog).

We launched the program at a dormitory at the western end of Singapore. After 5 of these shows, we conducted placement tests for those workers who wanted to join our English classes. Over 50 turned up for the placements tests on week 6, and last week 45 turned up for classes. They were placed in three levels of classes according to their English ability. There are 6 levels of classes in the course, and each lasts 12 weeks.

The aim of these classes is to teach the workers functional English, to enable them to interact with colleagues and with Singaporean society. The lessons are given in a relaxed atmosphere, with plenty of interaction between students and facilitators. The last half-hour of the 2-h class, called English café, is a time when the class breaks up into small groups to chat or play language games with facilitators over a biscuit or two.

We hope to start the program in a second dormitory soon.

Level 2 students practising with each other and with facilitators

2014-03-04

Update on Goducate’s Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) relief work in North Panay

About a month ago Goducate began to send out Goducate Tent Schools (GTS) teams to help rehabilitate schools in North Panay damaged in early November by Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). Before then the teams had been busy designing and making the tents and roof coverings.

The 4 teams (5-6 members per team) are based in their respective base-camps in the following towns—Lemery, Concepcion, Mambusao, and Carles. From their base camps the teams go to damaged schools to cover roofless classrooms with tarpaulins, and to set up specially designed tent-classrooms to replace damaged classrooms declared unsafe. These teams are supported by the GTS engineering team, logistics team, and accounting team. When classrooms are covered or replaced, classes can resume “normally.”

So far we have helped 38 schools, covered 63 classrooms with tarpaulins, and set up 18 tent-classrooms. There are still hundreds of damaged classrooms in North Panay that we hope to rehab.

After GTS helps restore the physical condition of the classrooms in a school, we organize a Goducate Teachers’ Appreciation Day for the teachers of the school. Many teachers have themselves lost their homes and have had to teach in roofless classrooms and work overtime to do make-up classes for their students. They are Typhoon Haiyan’s unsung heroes/heroines.

Goducate provides gifts to the teachers, and our community development workers (CDWs) who are trained in massage therapy pamper the teachers with “spa” treatment. We then give blank thank-you cards to the students to write their personal thank-you messages to their teachers. Many teachers are so moved by the messages that they cry uncontrollably before the whole school. One teacher remarked “In the past we organized the Teachers’ Day activities in our school. This is the first time someone else has organized a Teachers’ Appreciation Day for us. We are so touched!”

After the Goducate Teachers’ Appreciation Day, we work with the teachers to do “remedial” classes for students (most of whom have fallen behind in their studies because of the disruption by Typhoon Haiyan). Our CDWs also work with the Parents-Teachers Associations to hold community classes on public health, nutrition, agriculture, and livelihood skills. This community work will intensify when summer holidays begin in March, and our CDWs can focus their energies on communities (rather than remedial classes).

Goducate is planning to send its 5th GTS team to Leyte (near Tacloban) to do similar rehab work.

Roofless classroom covered by tarpaulin by Goducate team

Damaged classroom replaced by Goducate Tent School

Goducate Teachers' Appreciation Day — Goducate Teachers’ Appreciation Day