Tag: children

Last week, fifty teachers from the seven Goducate Literacy Centers in Sabah gathered for a teachers’ meeting.

The meeting was held on the 2nd floor of a fast-food restaurant. For most of them, it was either the first or second time that they had entered a fast-food restaurant (the previous occasion was also another teachers’ outing). It was a real treat for them and they came in their “Sunday” best!

It was hard for anyone to imagine that these smart-looking teachers were mostly in manual, menial work (eg. scrap-pickers, laundry women, cleaners in the public markets) before Goducate trained them to be teachers.

When they were each asked to stand up and say a few words about themselves, the majority said this “I came to Sabah from the Philippines to escape poverty and was hoping to find work in Sabah as a maid but I never imagined that one day I would be a teacher!” Tears rolled down many eyes that day!

The truth is that they are not only teachers but excellent ones because they are motivated to teach their own children to read and write. The desire to see their children learn and grow motivates them never to be late for work, never to miss a day and never to be slip-shod or lazy.

That day as their trainer and I talked to them they listened intently, taking in every word – ready to bring it back what they learned to their villages.

I have seldom seen a more motivated group of people in my life. It is a pleasure to see how a little encouragement and training from Goducate has enabled this group of 50 teachers to teach literacy and numeracy to over 2000 students.

Goducate is honored to be able to help them help their own children and fellow-villagers!

The 15 visitors from the blogging communities of ieatishootipost and Nuffnang were given a first-hand view of the progress of Goducate’s 2 year old literacy program in Sabah, Malaysia.

When they visited Goducate’s newest literacy center (barely 2 months old) they saw only 40 students learning their ABC’s in a little “porch” over a swamp. In this community of over a 1000 people, we were told by the village-head who had lived there for 25 years, that this was the first “school” in that community.

When they visited another literacy center that had functioned for 6 months, they witnessed a concert performed by over 150 students. The students of this school performed a little “concert” for us (some standing in the swampy mud) presenting items in halting English.

When they visited a center that had functioned for a year, they witnessed classes in arithmetic and English conducted in neat classrooms. The students in this center were confidently answering their teachers’ questions.

When they visited the first literacy center that Goducate started 2 years ago, they saw a nice school house with 400 students and were entertained by children speaking confidently in English.

It was a real pleasure to see how these centers had progressed through the efforts of their teachers – most of whom are mothers whom Goducate has trained.

Goducate believes that mothers make the best teachers.

Goducate believes that every mother wants to see her children learn and grow.

Goducate wants to empower mothers by training them to help their own children.

Goducate helps needy Asians help themselves.

Last week, Dr Leslie Tay, the well-known Singapore food-blogger who started the ieatishootipost.sg food-blog led a team of 11 from his blogging community to visit the literacy centers set up by Goducate for poor children in Sabah. They were accompanied by 4 friends from Nuffnang, Asia-Pacific’s first blog advertising community.

The ieatishootipost blog-community had earlier this year raised funds to purchase a vehicle for these poor children. MHC Asia (Singapore’s largest third party medical administrator) had matched a dollar for every dollar that ieatishootipost raised.

The blogging community, represented by these eleven, handed over a cheque for $22,000 (Singapore dollars) to Goducate for the purchase of the vehicle which will be used by the supervisors, teachers and students of Goducate’s literacy centers.

Due the shortage of time and the difficulty of reaching these centers, the team managed to see only 4 of the 7 Goducate literacy centers in Sabah. They had to take a boat and walk on rickety planks to reach one of the centers that was situated over a mangrove swamp. To visit another center that was 25 minutes walk from the road, they slipped and fell in the slippery mud and used banana leaves and car-mats as umbrellas. To visit another center that was in a swamp they sloshed through mud.

Needless to say, these dedicated foodies also enjoyed an amazing array of Sabah’s finest sea-food.

Their conclusion at the end of their short trip:

The food was excellent but the opportunity to see how Goducate’s simple education was changing the lives of these poor children was much better.

I’m sure that this will not be their last trip to encourage these poor children!
I’m confident that they will be challenging the other members of their large blogging community to be a part of Goducate’s dream of bringing literacy to the illiterate!