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Monthly Goducate English camps in Batam, Indonesia

Our English camps were held with students coming from Tunas Baru Secondary school in Batu Aji, Batam. We had over 45 students for each month of May and June. Their ages are from 14 to 16 years. The purpose was to teach them conversational English through games and drama. Some of these kids are presently attending our Goducate center in Batu Aji which is about 15 mins from the campsite.
On the first day, Saturday, we had 4 to 5 youth volunteers from Batam and Singapore to play games with them. The purpose was to use English as the medium in giving instruction so that they can practice speaking English. We had sack race, passing the rubber band through drinking straws, dog and the bone, tug-a-war, walking on clogs, etc.It was so much fun as they began to break from their shyness to speak English. Next we had about 4 to 5 adult volunteers to teach drama. You name it we have it. We made costumes and props from whatever we can lay our hands on, like trash bags, newspapers, cardboard, masking tape and marker pen.

It was so much fun to see all them participate and speaking and acting their part in English. They were tired out after the 2 days of activities but really enjoyed themselves.

Our English camps are monthly affairs and our helpers are all volunteers from Singapore and Batam.

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Day-care classes started in Laguna, Philippines

On Monday we began day-care classes for poor kids in two Goducate centers in Laguna.

In the Goducate Lalao Learning Center, Lisa teaches Kindergarten 1 and
Abegail teaches Kindergarten 2. (Abegail also teaches 7 Alternative Learning System students – all parents of the Kindergarten students)

In Goducate Mabakan, Gina teaches Kindergarten 1 and Marina teaches Kindergarten 2. (Gina also teachers 3 ALS students).

We hope that these classes will give these poor kids a decent start in life, so that they will eventually be able to help themselves.

Abegail and her class
Abegail and her class
Gina teaches her class
Gina teaches her class
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Education includes dancing!

In our Literacy Centers in Sabah for “undocumented alien” children we teach literacy and numeracy. These are basic skills that provide the foundation for other subjects that we will teach. However, we have also added an additional subject that we believe is important, namely, traditional dance.

I realized that the people that we were helping were really marginalized. They lost their identity when they left their ancestral homes in southern Philippines. They lost their dignity when they had to eke out a living doing the lowest menial jobs. Their kids have lost their language. And they’ve all lost hope of everything except surviving!

When we started the literacy centers in their kampongs, a little glimmer of hope was placed in their communities and in their hearts. But I realized that education is a long term investment and it will take years of hard work before visible results are seen. In the meanwhile, I felt that they should be allowed to retain an important part of their identity, namely, their traditions.

Needless to say, they had lost much of their traditions – their traditional kampongs, their traditional means of earning their livelihoods, their family structures, their festivals – in their new environment. But there was one tradition that they could preserve in their new environment – traditional dance.

When we first introduced traditional Tausug dance in the first literacy center, many little girls readily took up the lessons and excelled in it. At school functions when they proudly displayed their skills, I noticed how the parents looked pleased as their children danced their traditional dances. Since then we have made traditional dance a subject for the little girls in our Goducate centers.