illiterate – Page 4 – Goducate … Go And Educate!

2010-03-032010-02-19

Jean’s diary – a new literacy center

Wed, February 10,2010 – And so we went in again the next day, the school supplies that the sponsors gave to these children brought a smile on their faces. These children now had a hope to go to school and learn.. We were just near the new constructed building seeing the teachers to be with the parents carrying the bags that we brought to their place.. All are excited to have one bag of supplies.. Inside are 2 notebooks, a 10 colored crayons, 2 pencils, eraser, a coloring book, scissors, and the like.. thanks to the friends who are willing to help. The enrollees reached 240 children ages 5-18 years old.

Saturday that week, dated February 13, a day before Chinese new year.. I went there again.. this time I was with a friend but he left me alone because he need something to do.. I was there looking at the parents specially fathers who are working together to build the school house.. It was their joy to do the work because it is Chinese New Year and a holiday as well.

I was there standing all alone until I can’t stand anymore but to carry a post with teacher “S” to help the work. Until a man came to me and say.. “Teacher, I will never allow my children to go to school” then I ask “why uncle?”

He answered me bitterly “you see, I graduated Criminology in college already but where I am now? Still nothing to do with it. It will just give you frustrations just what had happened to me. I never worked in the course that I graduated.. Everything is just a waste!” then I told him “ Uncle, could it be possible that your calling is not a policeman but a teacher? Why won’t you try to teach your children.You know what it is better that your children know how to read and write so that no one will fool them.” Then the man thinks deeply and said, “Yah, teacher you are right. Come with me go to my Khampung.”

to be continued

2010-03-022010-02-26

Jean’s diary – the poor children in Sabah

Tuesday noon, February 9, 2010 – We walked a kilometer to reach our destination in the hot afternoon sun. It was another adventure for me and my team we stepped into mud and it covered all our toes but it is nothing compared how my heart breaks. As we passed the demolished houses because the owner needs the space for new buildings, squatted houses has a red mark, the community that we saw squatted there from generation to generation… they don’t have a place to go to.. What they did was they just moved much further into the mangrove area. The water was totally polluted.

I saw this little kid who doesn’t have hope that he can get out of the swamp he lived in. He doesn’t even know how old is he, neither can recognize his real name. He doesn’t have a birth certificate that will be his proof that he existed in this world.

Before, upon seeing this picture in magazines and posters,within me I was saying, “Well I don’t think there are children who looks like these..hmm.. Maybe they just take a picture elsewhere.. and post it.. I have this feeling that these people doesn’t exist in this world.. No community as poor as this that they can’t even afford to buy their own meal..”

Totally I was wrong. Indeed it was here before my eyes.. a child, and not just a child, but a community who lived in a swamp area that all their lives they were there. The lifestyle that they had was so sad that they just throw their garbage everywhere. No one to teach them the proper way of garbage disposal. They would cut the mangroves to build a house and don’t even know how to plant just to replace it. No permanent job to cater to their family’s needs.. No way of getting to school because they were undocumented.. What else can the future gave to these children? All their lives they spent in miserable situation. This people needs our help to educate them and give them hope. Every kid that we educate will change not only their life, their family, but their community as well.

to be continued

2010-02-122010-02-13

Hard to keep mums from starting literacy centers

It’s hard to keep eager mums from starting a literacy center!

Part of my schedule during my recent Sabah (East Malaysia) trip was to plan the start-up of more literacy centers. Our team had already seen the success of the first two literacy centers and were excited with the prospect of opening 5 more in the next 6 months.

So after the excitement and joy of seeing over 400 kids learning their ABC’s and 123’s in the first 2 villages, I went with a smaller team to survey 3 more potential villages. When we reached the vicinity of the first potential village at the outskirts of the town, we parked our van and walked along a long narrow shaky “path” of planks over swampy ground towards a little shack. We were planning to meet the teacher, Ms K, whom we had trained last December.

However, instead of meeting Ms K, we were greeted with the happy voices of about 40 children shouting “Good morning teachers!” As I peeked into the dark house, I saw Ms K teaching the kids using the plywood wall of her tiny kitchen/dining area as her blackboard. On this plywood wall was scrawled the alphabets. The kids were eagerly taking their turn identifying the alphabets.

“Hey, Ms K, weren’t you supposed to wait for us to come and discuss the setting up of a literacy center in your village?”

Well, the reply was “The mums couldn’t wait!”

Ms K was one of the mums that we had identified as potential teachers at our previous recruitment exercise late last year. Over 20 such mums were selected. They had to have a passion to teach kids and have some high-school education (preferably a high-school diploma). A master-teacher of phonics was tasked to teach them. The course lasted one week.

I left our “district” supervisor, Ms L (herself once an eager village mum) to discuss the future development plans with Ms K for the expansion of this literacy center to accommodate many more kids.

I was just too happy watching and listening to the kids enjoying their first taste of school to bother with the details of administration!