Service-Learning - as remote as Rwanda

If we can teach kids in Hong Kong remotely,  can we teach kids in Rwanda from Hong Kong?  You bet.  This is exactly what is happening today.  After much negotiations, planning, testing of equipment, acquiring of hardware, installation of software, setting of time (there is a 6 hour time difference between Hong Kong and Rwanda), our students launch the first lesson today.  

Our student team consists of 2 Malaysians, 1 Indonesian, and 2 Rwandans.  Yes, we have students from Rwanda studying at PolyU.  They are here, partly as a result of our prior work in Rwanda.  They are taking service-learning courses and they have decided that they will help in the project which serves their own country.  And we do need them as the bridge, obviously.  

Three member of the team came back to campus to do the lesson.  Two work from the dormitory.  Together they are teaching 4 Rwandan kids from 2 families.  All of them, speak English but they are interacting with English speakers from a foreign country for the first time.  How exciting!  

The lesson today will start with culture.  How is Hong Kong different from Rwanda, etc. Soon, we hope to make it also physical.  We will be trying to send them some of the STEM kits that we have developed.  We will also make use of some of the material left from prior projects: solar panels, cables, light bulbs, tools, …   Imagine: Rwandan kids connecting a light bulb through a set of cables to a solar panel, put the panel outside under the sun, …, and watch as the lightbulb light up.  All done with their own hands.  

We cannot go there in person.  That does not mean we cannot make our impact felt in some way.  We are told that their neighbours are all excited and piled into their houses to see what was going on.  

Isn’t our team and students amazing?