GODUCATE CAMP & TRAINING CENTER

Annually, Family Medicine residents are required to have a behavioral activity that fosters the camaraderie of the residents as well as an opportunity for a bit of R & R..... Ambitiously we were hoping to have our behavioral activity in Boracay but we don't have enough budget so opted for other choices. Good thing, our coresident, Dr. Ela Jose introduced to us a new place in San Miguel (Iloilo). It is a camp and training center combined into one.It just opened last April of this year and construction is still ongoing. It is a 11.2 hectare site, a forested area turned into a training center. It is rich with fields  of rice, vegetables, and fruit trees. It also has aquaculture pond where you can fish some talapia and grill it, hehe. For training activities, there have a large multipurpose hall and  a camp-site for accommodation. It is also well-equipped with recreational facilities  like zip lines, horse trails, swimming/dipping pool and a restaurant with foozball table. Goducate  Camp and Training Center is geared towards as their name say, 'to go and educate". They will be trained to help poor communities of Asians help themselves. A large part of their training will be in agriculture and aquaculture. This organization was founded by a medical doctor named Dr. Peter Choo from Singapore. There are several Goducate centers allover the Philippines and around Asia. San Miguel is blessed to  be chosen to be the place for the Goducate Center in Iloilo. Here in Iloilo, the center are facilitated by lively Baptist young professionals volunteers. In our stay, we were welcomed by the enthusiastic Engr. Jeru Samillo. Their philosophy is to help others help themselves as well as imparting the Word of God.   

Allow me to be your virtual tour guide to this serendipitous discovery (naks!).....

Welcome to the Hallway....

This is perfect for holding training and lectures. There is a great demand for leadership training, team-building and behavioral activities as such ours that could be beneficial in generating funds for the center to be self-sustaining in the future. Kudos to the interior designer of the center! Even if the place was a camp, still they manage to make the hallway a chic modern venue for learning. Though I am sure they are still a lot of improvement to the area, the hallway needs a little ventilation and it was pretty hot inside especially on a summer day.


This is the Sky City

This was our home for the night. It was inspired by a camp Engr. Samillo visited abroad. The hut where on top of a tree, surrounding it is a net to ward off mosquitoes. It was quite  a different experience inside the hut. I call it "the dancing hut". When you are inside, you can feel the hut shaking especially when someone is moving inside and you feel the trees vibrating. I had a good nice sleep during my stay and guess what? No mosquito bites, hehe.....

Goducate also has several recreational  facilities. Here is the Zipline... 

The zipline is not that sophisticated. It doesn't have any fancy contraptions you find in other ziplines. You are just supported by a strap attached to your back and inserted into your armpits. You placed on of your foot into a modified tire wheel and you hang on to your life!!! Sophisticated or not, it sure was  a lot of fun and we want to do another round AGAAAIIIN! Below is a pond where there are a school of fishes, mostly talapias, hehe.. You can fish there for P20 for the use of  fishing pole and if you plan to grill the fish, it is P120 per kilo.


Here is the Dipping Pool...

There is a dipping pool for adult and kids. It was perfect after our fun, muddy and tiring amazing race. It was shaped to accommodate the natural structure of the landscape of the place. If you plan to do a Olympic lap, this is not the pool to do it. Its a place where you can hang out with your friends to chat and cool yourself. And the little falls adds a nice touch to it....


This is the Resto.....

We weren't able to eat here in the resto. Most of our meals are served in the hallway. But the foods made by Chef Jason and Chef Coching was yummy, filling and a delight to your gustatory & visual senses.


The resto also sells their own fruits like green and yellow mangoes. We also found a treasure in the resto: a foozball table!!!! We enjoyed a sweaty noisy game of foozball. We were even thinking of getting a foozball table for our department as our next project, hahaha!  

One of the highlights of the behavioral activity: The AMAZING RACE!!!!.


We were divided into two groups: TEAM CARLSBERG  and TEAM MUSA. We were given two "serious" marshalls that will give us our tasks and will be check if we done the task correctly until we can move to another task.

Task # 1: Plant 15 Mahogany Trees.... Go!

Task # 2: Plant an acacia tree

Task # 3: Egg hunt (soooo challenging.... waaaa!)

Task # 4: Collect 15 leafy veggies, 5 eggplants, 10 tomatoes....

Task # 5: Fish 20 talapia

Aren't we just glad we didn't have enough budget for Boracay because we had such a great time and a very unique, fun & different behavioral activity at this pleasant discovery in San Miguel... We  definitely went camping..... in style..... hehe...