Training for Rwanda

This summer, in July-August, we are planning a very ambitious project.  We will send a team of PolyU students and staff.  They will be joined by students from several of our partner universities from Mainland China and a number of foreign countries.  There will also be a number of students and teachers from some of our partner secondary schools from Hong Kong. On the ground they will be joined by the staff and local volunteers from our partner African Evangelical Enterprises.  And yet another small team from one of our partners from Tanzania, who will be getting warmed up for the upcoming project in Tanzania.  And then, of course, there will be youths from the villages where we will be installing solar panels.  All together the team will consist of more than 100 people.  

It is expected that 400 households will be provided with electricity through solar panels to be installed in a number of configurations.  The electricity will power a wireless self-contained local area network supporting a number of applications being developed by our students.  And this is just a very brief skeleton of what we are preparing.  Lots of details have been left out.  

Our students have already gone through 3 months of lectures, workshops, reading, and planning to get ready. This year we have Dr. Z in our teaching team.  Dr. Z, when he was still an undergraduate at PolyU about 10 years ago, went with us to Cambodia and Rwanda.  He climbed on the ladder to install the first solar panels that we set up in Rwanda, together with the Dean of Engineering.  

Today, Dr. Z has gone on to obtain a PhD from Oxford University.  He will be a professor somewhere soon.  He is spending the summer helping us train a new generation of students to serve in Rwanda.  Service-Learning has come full circle.  One of many amazing developments that we have witnessed and have the privilege to be part of.  

The journey is so wonderful!  We couldn’t imagine that this is how it would turn out  when we got started, more than a decade ago.  It was an act of faith, backed up by a little knowledge and a lot more hope.  And we are nowhere near finished.   God willing, we will continue for a long time yet, seeing the good that has come from it, and so much more to come.