Goducate … Go And Educate! – Page 97 – Helping Asians Help Themselves

2013-10-022013-10-04

Strengthening of partnership between Goducate and Tranca Elementary School in Laguna

Goducate started working with Tranca Elementary School in Tranca, Laguna, in the first quarter of 2012, with a feeding program that, after 6 months, resulted in 95% of the students attaining their appropriate weight. The success of this program led the school to invite Goducate to join them in other programs.

In the school’s farming program, Goducate taught the students and teacher hydroponic and aquaponic gardening, and the school’s principal and teacher in charge of farming visited the Goducate Model Farm to learn more about growing vegetables. The school won first place for the Most Clean and Green Program and the Gulayan sa Paaralan Competition, which Mrs Cora Ortiz, the school’s principal acknowledged was in part due to the partnership with Goducate.

Goducate has also helped the school in its Moral Recovery program. When camps or seminars are held as part of this program, Goducate has been invited to participate.
Recently when the Multiple Intelligence International School from Metro Manila visited Tranca Elementary School to do some tree planting, Goducate was invited along for the event as well as to give a lecture on hydroponics.

The Department of Education’s District Supervisor has acknowledged Goducate’s contribution to the work at Tranca Elementary School by giving us a Certificate of Recognition as a partner in education. In addition it has taken on one of our literacy teachers onto their kindergarten staff.

More recently, Tranca Elementary School offered Goducate the use of their old administrative building for a Goducate Literacy Center, which now caters for 14 students. In appreciation of this favor, Goducate gave a school a computer.

The newest development in the partnership is the Voice lessons that Goducate is starting for the students of Tranca Elementary, who are learning forward to learning how to sing better.

2013-09-272013-09-30

Goducate Sabah celebrates its 5th anniversary

About 5 years ago Goducate heard that in a corner of Sabah there were some 1 million undocumented aliens, and that because of their status, the children were not entitled to state education. The children thus grew up loitering around or getting into mischief, until they, especially the boys, were old enough to find work in the plantations.

These people were mainly from the southern Philippines, who had since the 1960s been going to Sabah to escape the civil strife at home. At that time Sabah’s then Chief Minister, who had family ties in the Philippines, gave the Filipinos asylum. So many people are stateless now because their passports have expired, or because they have entered by the “back door”.

During Goducate’s exploratory visit, we learnt the community was keen for the children to have some education. But how were we to provide education for so many children? When we found out that some of the mothers had had some education in the Philippines, the strategy became clear. We would teach the mothers to teach the kids.

In this way we have opened more than 30-40 centers over the 5 years. It’s a fluctuating population, with some centers having to close because the people have been forced out. At the moment there are 30 centers, staffed by 64 teachers and assistant teachers. The focus of teaching is on literacy and numeracy. Goducate sends a trainer over several times a year to upgrade the teachers. To help the children find jobs, training in livelihood skills such as manicure, sewing, and cooking have also been introduced.

Because of the unsanitary conditions in which these communities live, Goducate has also introduced a health program that includes hygiene and deworming. For adults there is a screening and education program on hypertension and diabetes. And for all, there is a nutrition program, with communities being encouraged to plant moringa, a plant that provides many nutrients.

Most of the older children who have gone through our centers are either working—in shops, restaurants, spas, and factories, or as assistant teachers in our centers. Some have enrolled in schools (either private, or, if they now have identification papers, state schools) after having caught up with their basic literacy and numeracy at our centers.

For the 5th anniversary celebrations, the teachers were brought together to share their experiences informally as well as formally (which gave them practice in public speaking), to show their performing skills, to clarify what they wanted to know during a question-and-answer session, to be thanked for what they have done, to be encouraged to continue their good work, and generally to enjoy themselves. For many it was their first time attending a function in a modern hotel, a far cry from the village life they lead.

2013-09-242013-09-24

Goducate teachers start work in Vietnam

Vietnam hopes to be an English-speaking nation by 2020. What that country lacks are teachers of English. When Goducate visited Danang, Vietnam’s third-largest city, in May this year, we had a request for a pilot batch of teachers to be sent over in September. In July, our Vietnamese partners visited the Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, to meet our trainees and staff, and to observe the kind of training offered at the Center. They reiterated their request for teachers in September.

We have thus been helping the trainees to understand Vietnamese culture, to learn a survival level of the Vietnamese language, and how to get about on motorbikes, which is the main means of transport in Vietnam.

Four teachers from Goducate are now in Danang. After a few days meeting their local co-workers and observing classes at a school, two have started teaching there. One is teaching in a language school, one will probably start at a nursery school, and two are being assigned to teach in hotels.

Our teachers now have been given an apartment, and are grateful for donations of various household items for their use. One family has also given them two bicycles—not motorcycles—which is very handy for getting to and from school and for grocery shopping, at least for three of them. The fourth has yet to learn to ride a bicycle, which is going to be daunting because, unlike the spaciousness and quiet of the Goducate Training Center, the streets in Danang are full of bicycles and motorcycles.