Dr. Paul Yew Hua Choo is the founder and chairman of Goducate Limited, a Singapore-based not-for-profit organization with projects in nine Asian countries that include China, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mynmar, India, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, and Vietnam. Goducate is coined from two words, “ Go and Educate”. Its avowed purpose is to help needy Asians help themselves.
Born in Singapore on 29 July 1947, Dr. Choo obtained his elementary and secondary education from the Anglo-Chinese School. He graduated from the Medical Faculty, University of Singapore (renamed National University of Singapore) and qualified as a medical doctor in 1971. He was conferred with honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bob Jones University, South Carolina, USA in 1998.
Goducate believes in helping needy Asians help themselves. Therefore, it believes in starting projects that are eventually self-sustaining. The exception to this is when Goducate helps out in emergency situations (eg, earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons, floods).
Therefore, Goducate Training Center, where future Goducate workers are trained, must set the example of being self-sustaining. This will be a big challenge because it costs a lot of money to maintain an 11 hectare site, with multiple facilities on it. Furthermore, there is the need to feed, house, and train many trainees (hopefully 100 full-time trainees by 2012). We also need to feed about 100 teenagers from poor surrounding villages each weekend who come to the training center for weekend training in lifeskills such as discipline, teamwork, leadership, cultivating good habits, etc. Then there is the need to pay our faculty of agricultural lecturers and trainers, and teachers in English, literacy, computer skills, foreign language, and cross-cultural knowledge.
One way to help is to produce as much of our own food as possible. We have managed to grow high-yield rice that provides all our present rice needs. Our own vegetable gardens and fruit trees can produce most of our vegetable and fruit needs, with some extra for sale. Our impounding pond has an estimated 15,000 tilapia fish—which can provide most of our needs for animal protein.
However, we still need to raise funds to pay for the other expenses mentioned in para 2. We believe that we can raise this by renting out our facilities to corporations, institutions, schools, and even individuals for their special events. For example, a corporation may rent our multipurpose hall and facilities for their training or bonding event, or a university may rent our huts, dipping pools, and activity fields for a special event,
It is much more convenient to rely on donations to maintain the training center, but if we can’t help ourselves, we will not be able to train our workers to help others to help themselves.
All purpose gymnasiumDipping pools for rentRevenue-generating zip-line
On April 9, 2011 we held a “soft launch” for Goducate Training Center in Iloilo, Philippines.
About 200 Goducate supporters and friends (including a dozen from Singapore and Australia) joined us for this occasion to celebrate the completion of Phase 1A of GTC’s development. We had had our ground-breaking in June 2010. So we have completed Phase 1A in 10 months of hard, efficient work.
Phase 1A includes all the basic infrastructure of security fencing, land development, road system, irrigation system, basic agricultural and aqua-cultural developments, office and classrooms, simple trainee accommodations, camp-site, and basic revenue-earning activities.
The main event for the soft launch was held in the canteen of the multipurpose hall, and other events were held in the activity field, agricultural area, camp-site, and restaurant.
We will be taking in our “pilot” batch of 20 over trainees at the end of April. They will be trained for about 6 months in the basic skills needed to help poor communities to help themselves.
The future of Goducate depends on its ability to train the right type of workers who will help needy Asians help themselves. Therefore, GTC is a vital part of Goducate’s future!
Entrance to Multi-purpose Hall which has main hall, dining hall, offices and training rooms.Guests in Dining Hall of Multi-purpose Hall.Guests at camp-site
Dr. Paul Yew Hua Choo is the founder and chairman of Goducate Limited, a Singapore-based not-for-profit organization with projects in nine Asian countries that include China, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mynmar, India, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, and Vietnam. Goducate is coined from two words, “ Go and Educate”. Its avowed purpose is to help needy Asians help themselves.
