Then we started installing solar panels to generate electricity. Firstly for two primary schools in the mountains in Gikomero. When that had proven to work, we started installing single systems for families for 10+ families in the following year. Then we refine the design to install solar panels on a few selected houses as charging stations. That way many more houses can charge their batteries at the charging stations and then bring their batteries back home to power the lights and phone chargers that we install. We ended up providing electricity to hundreds of houses in a village deep in a valley where there has never had electricity, and the Internet does not reach yet. When the lights turned on for the first time, the villages feel they were in Kigali! Along the way, we also setup wireless networks for many of AEE Rwanda’s offices all over Rwanda. We ran many workshops on a wide range of technology related topics to children, adults, …
We later on brought another team to do health promotion and started some vegetable gardens. Another team design more efficient brick stoves to replace their 2-stone stoves. We brought along a team from University of Maryland to work alongside PolyU students. We brought along young people from a local NGO and students from the University of Rwanda. We trained young people from the villages to install solar panels for their own villages and neighbouring ones. When the pandemic hit, we are able to leverage the connections we have developed to set up remote classes for children who cannot go to school, taught by our students through the tenuous Internet. We are developing ways to strengthen those classes. We may even be able to teach local youths and university students to install solar panels remotely. Using our experience in Rwanda, we are planning to take our projects to other African countries.
Rwanda/Africa offers tremendous service and learning opportunities because it is so different from Hong Kong/China/Asia. Also because it is so far away, the cost of travelling, logistics and time is high. For these reasons it is difficult to bring a large team, or to stay for a long time. Hence we have always to be very well prepared when we come, and to make every day and every person count while we are on the ground. That has forced and stimulated us to not just work hard but also be creative. Increasingly, we are taking advantage of the advances in the Internet and associated technologies to create new projects and new ways to engage.
In return, we have made so many friends. We learned it is possible to recover from horrible horrible genocide. It is possible to forgive and reconcile. It is possible to live in poverty with hope. It is possible to be confident even when you are dirt poor. We learned hardship can build character. We learned that technology can divide but also unite. We learned how gratifying it can be when you can use what you know to do good. We learned how to live with very little water. We learned why we should treasure what we have. We learned you need to learn in order to be useful. We learned to not take good fortune for granted. We learned that when we share we gain so much more. We learned and continue to learn so much.
In many places in the world, we may have an opportunity to make an incremental change, from 100 to 101, or 10 to 11. In places like Rwanda, we have an opportunity to make a quantum change, from Zero to One, from nothing to something. Wouldn’t we want to make a quantum jump?
Rwanda has been, and remains a challenging as well as fruitful offshore base for us.
#servicelearning
#Rwanda
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