Goducate believes in helping Asians to help themselves. Therefore, Goducate projects are usually community projects.
Goducate does not believe in playing the role of a charitable Santa Claus bearing gifts because this type of help breeds laziness. Worse than laziness, it robs the recipients of their dignity as useful human beings.
I was so glad when I visited our Sabah learning centers last week to see how the community was actively participating in educating their own children. When I arrived at our first center, I was glad to see that a nice coat of bright red paint had been added to the center. I was told that the parents had done this on their own accord.
As I sat to watch the welcome program that they had prepared for us that day, I was told that all the decorations were done by the community and the school. I was told that as present building was too small to hold the student body of 400 students, different households had volunteered to open their houses to serve as additional classrooms. I was especially proud to see the local mums teaching their own children – using the teaching techniques and materials that we had given to them. They looked just like the teachers in any other school in the city!
As I went to each of the 5 centers, I saw how each community was actively participating in building and running of the learning centers. In our 2nd Center, I saw that the community had added a new wall to their previously totally “open-concept” school house! They had even extended their school house with zinc sheets taken from a recently torn down nearby building. And the dads had made many more simple desks for the students.
I was so glad to see that the Goducate philosophy of helping poor Asians help themselves was no more just a dream among these “undocumented aliens” of Sabah but had become a reality.
From the 11th to the 23rd of January, I ate, slept, worked, and chatted with the children at the Goducate Children’s Home in Preyop, Cambodia. A typical day for a child in the home would go along something like this—wake up at crack of dawn to do assigned tasks or chores, have breakfast, attend school (in English) and Khmer classes, then back to doing assigned tasks in various part of… Continue reading
A nursing school that came to know about Goducate’s community work has chosen the Goducate Learning Center in Mabakan, Calaun, to be a center for practical training for their students. Hence 10 nursing students spent January training the locals in basic health awareness and doing health screenings.
Training session
Some 30 people, mostly mothers, attended… Continue reading
A fortnight ago parents of the children attending the Goducate Learning Center in Lalao, Laguna, were brought together to attend a session with their children. The session, called Mama and Me, was intended to emphasize to the parents the importance of good communication with their children and of teaching their children and supervising them while they do their homework and assignments. For the children, the intention was to impress on… Continue reading
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