What Can One Man Do?

Last night, a few of us met Dr. Paul Choo, founder of Goducate, and Vivien his sister. Goducate is a non profit organization that reaches out to poor Asians, helping them to help themselves mainly through education. Go Educate!

It was a lovely evening of nostalgia (some among us were

childhood friends and others were ex classmates) and new insights. Some things Paul said struck me and stayed with me.

• "We don't want to give them money - that will run out and we will be back to square one."
• "We don't build schools for them, we get them to build those themselves. If we build it for them, should it leak, they will call us and expect us to do something about it. But when they build it themselves, they will fix it themselves."
• "We make the mothers the teachers. They have a greater investment because they are teaching their own kids."
• "We raise the status of the mothers from bottle pickers to teachers."
• "We give them something more than just education. We give them hope."

*Please note that all the quotes " ... " are as I remember them to be. They are NOT in verbatim.

Paul shared the work of Goducate in Sabah, helping the refugees from the Philippines,many from the war torn island of Mindanao. His stories were heartwarming. He showed us photos of a handful of teenagers who might possibly make it to college back in the Philippines, after being in their literacy programme for just 2 years. I could feel his sense of pride.

When asked what we could do if we visited his Learning Centers, he shared that realistically, we can't do much within the 3 - 5 day visit. However, there is a lot we can do, the rest of the 360 days back here in Singapore. Seriously I never saw it in that light.

We could:

• Publicize the work of Goducate to raise awareness
• Use our network to help raise funds
• Plan and help to collect useful "used" items that would facilitate learning in their Centers
• Get others involved and grow the network

So, why go when we can do all these things from here? Paul had a twinkle in his eyes. "You can't do all of the above if you have not been there and seen them with your own eyes. You can't speak from the heart."

I was sold!

Then he shared about two other interesting projects. One was to get mothers to grow their own vegetables in their own backyard, instead of feeding the family with rice and instant noodles.

Called veg@table, it is in the process of being implemented with the help of worms called African Night Crawlers. These worms thrive on left over vegetables (especially when mixed with manure) and produce rich poop which is used as fertilizer to grow the vegetables.

The other is in the Philippines where street kids are lured to learn to play a musical instrument and then join an orchestra of sorts. They perform at any festival or celebration upon request, and get paid. Some have even been able to go back to school through music scholarships. "It is all about giving them back their self esteem" said Paul.

This sharing is just about the projects in Sabah (East Malaysia). There is Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia, West Malaysia, and China.

What can one man do? Lots. What can we do? Lots too!

Learn more about Goducate at: www.goducate.org