Pedro, aged 32 and married with two young children, was a jobless and aimless fellow who first appeared at the Goducate Training Center (GTC) with his armed gang, hoping to extort some ‘protection money’ during the early stages of construction. Careful negotiations and counselling sessions with us subsequently led him out of the gang, and he joined the GTC construction team.
We also visited his family, showing them kindness and slowly helped them out of poverty. He owned no land or property, but we offered him opportunities at the GTC to learn farming. We shared our farming expertise with him and soon gave him charge of the hundreds of mango trees at the GTC.
Goducate’s philosophy of helping the poor to help themselves is seen in Pedro’s story – before long, he was able to repair his shack of a house, and subsequently bought a motor-bike, using it to visit other villagers in the area to teach them the farming and crop-growing skills he had picked up from the GTC.