Transformational Service-Learning

In summer 2016, we started taking teams of students on service-learning projects away from Hong Kong.  At first, we went to small cities and towns in central China, in Hubei province. Then small towns in remote northwest China in Gansu province.  Then urban and rural Cambodia.  Then rural Rwanda.  As time goes on, we take up more and more challenging, impactful, innovative projects.  In this summer (2023) the team installed solar panels to provide electricity for 400 households, which has never had electricity before - no meaningful artificial lighting after dark, ever. 

These summer excursions has become the highlights of our year, year after year.  For the students, as well as the teaching and support team.  I have read hundreds and hundreds of student journals and reports. I have led and participated in hundreds of reflection sessions with students and staff.  I have also reflected on my own experience, many times.  I keep asking myself - WHY?  Why do I enjoy them so much?  Why do I keep going again and again on these projects (30+ so far)?  Why do I keep going to the same place, for similar projects, albeit with different teams?  

One of the biggest emotions associated with these excursions is Feeling Alive! You are working on something with a clear, noble purpose.  You are working with a group of people with the same purpose.  You are achieving something that you would not be able to accomplish by yourself. You are working on something bigger than yourself.  You are achieving something that you feel proud to share with people whose opinion you value.   You feel this is what God would want you to do.  You are overcoming a challenge that takes significant effort.  You prove to yourself that you are capable of hard work.  You show character by suffering hardship.  You are making friends with people from far away places, with very different cultures, very different languages, very different beliefs - religious and otherwise.  You forget you are Hong Kong Chinese, Mainland Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian, South African, Indian, Nepalese, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Rwandan, Tanzanian, …   You forget you are Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, …  You don’t actually forget, but you feel that it does not matter.  

At the same time, you also escape from some debilitating environments - phoney people, people telling bold face lies, people selling their souls for power and money, people who feel they are more important than what they really are, bigots, tyrants, selfish people, bullies, cowards, people who want to occupy a high position without putting up the requisite effort, cruel people, selfish people, …  

For a short period of one to two weeks, issues are straightforward.  There may be some concern whether and how we can achieve the target.  But there is no doubt that what we are doing are beneficial for the community.  Everyone we come into contact with agree with the purpose - fellow teachers and students, local NGO partners, local community.  Everyone is working hard towards the same goal.  Your efforts and achievements are actually acknowledged.  People are actually kind to each other.  How often do we encounter that on any given day in our daily lives? In Hong Kong?  Elsewhere? 

Service-Learning, when done right, has that power to highlight what is important to us, focus our attention, unify our minds, and purify our souls.  

Smaller and smaller planes

We flew from Kigali in Rwanda to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania in a propeller powered plane. This is not the first time that I fly in a propeller powered plane, but it is not a very common experience either.  

When I took a photo of the propeller in mid-flight, the result was a bit unnerving. The propeller appeared to have frozen.  How can the plane fly when the propeller is not rotating?  The photo, of course, was the result of the very fast shutter of the camera.  The fast shutter captured the image of the propeller in such a short period of time, during which the propeller hardly moved.  

Later, when we flew from Dar Es Salaam to Iringa, we flew in an even smaller plane.  Seats were not assigned.  I found myself seated behind the co-pilot, which, for the first part of the flight, was not occupied.  

In the middle of the flight, the pilot had his hands folded in his lap.  Who was flying the plane?  The auto-pilot, of course.  Still, it was a little unnerving to see that seemingly, no one was flying the plane.  

Those were interesting experiences.  

Child Sponsorship - group of 4

I visited 4 other children in the child sponsorship program, a collaboration between African Evangelical Enterprise Rwanda and Jubilee Cares of Hong Kong.  The children live in Bweya Cell in Ndora Sector, in Gisgara District.  Near Butare in the south of Rwanda.  

The girl CU lives with her mother.  I visited her in 2022.  She has since grown (she is taller than her mother now) but just as shy as before.  The sponsorship provides her with books and supplies, uniform, fees for lunch at school and medical insurance. It also provides her mother with the funds to start a small business buying and selling produce.  When I visit her this time, she has a small store in the entrance of their rented house, selling cabbage.  She also buys and sells at the market when it opens.  In addition, the sponsorship also provides her with a couple of goats which produce a supplemental income when they reproduce.  

A separate governmental program provided her family with a cow, which smiled at us and licked my hands when I visited them in 2022.  The cow was to produce milk to provide better nutrition.  And offspring belongs to the government, which would give the offspring to other poor families.  Unfortunately, the smiling cow died while giving birth to a male.  Now they have to wait for the male to grow big enough, sell the male to get the money to buy another cow, and start all over again.  In any case, Clementine and her mother seem happy and very grateful. Her mother in particular.   

The lady in green, on the left, is Franzine.  She is a volunteer from the village.  She plays the role of the children ambassador in the program, as the frontline person in close contact with the child and her family.  

The girl SA lives with her mother and 3 other siblings.  She sleeps together with one of sisters on a mat on the earthen floor in her room which is not much bigger than her mat.  All their clothes hang on a string stretched about their mat.   Their 2 youngest siblings sleep with their mother in another room.   The father had left the family 7 years ago.  Out of the 5 children/families that I visited this time, only one seems to have a father around.  Scovia is 15 years old and is in secondary 5.  Since the sponsorship started, her academic ranking in her class has improved from 10th to 5th.  She seem very cheerful and was smiling throughout our encounter.  

The girl KU is 15 years old and is in primary 5.  She is the oldest of 6 children.  Previously her mother does farm work for others to make a living.  They have often struggle to put food on the table.  With the sponsorship, her mother has discovered a talent for running a small business, buying produce to sell.  It has produce a huge transformation in their lives.  How Kevinie ranks in the top 2 or 3 of her class.  

The boy EN is in secondary 1.  As a growing boy, he was often hungry prior to having the sponsorship.  He would feel unworthy and hide himself.  Now he no longer feels marginalised and is comfortable meeting people.  He loves physical education and football.  He has to collect grass to feed his goat. He also looks forward to fattening his pig, which should fetch good money.  His dream is to become a mechanical engineer and own his own home.   

When I was about to leave, he surprised me by taking me inside a room to see a litter of cute little rabbits with their mother.  Rabbits are consider good meat here, and they reproduce quickly.  

Iringa

Our small advance team is doing a preliminary investigation in the rural areas around Iringa, in central Tanzania.  For the possibility of doing a solar panel and related projects here.  

Tanzania is a big country in area.  Roughly the size of France and Italy added together.  Its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita is ~1/50 that of Hong Kong.  There are huge areas that are not covered by the electricity grid.  

The dirt roads into the villages look like the dirt roads in a safari.  Yet this is where many millions of people live. 

Even when the grid reaches an area, practically it means there is a power line along a main road.  Each household still has to pay for the cable, labour and other costs to connect to the power line.  For subsistence farmers who live 100 meters or more from the power line, the cost can be prohibitive.  Then there is the cost for the actual electricity that one uses.  Hence we often see houses with a power line nearby, but unconnected and still living in the dark.  Some would use kerosine, or candles. 

The size of the country and the spread of the population makes electrification a huge challenge. We visited 4 villages in Iringa and are overwhelmed by the huge size of the challenge.  There are hundreds and hundreds of household in these 4 villages alone.  And there a a lot more villages just in Iringa, …

We feel that we can perhaps make a small dent here. 

Child Sponsorship

K is a girl in a child sponsorship program in Rwanda - a collaboration between African Evangelical Enterprise Rwanda and Jubilee Cares of Hong Kong. 

Prior to being selected for the program, she was a bright student who often could not attend school regularly.  Because her family could not afford the uniform, shoes, books, fees for lunch, medical insurance, etc.  Now she is top of her class.  

The sponsorship also provided her family with some small animals, which can provide her family with some additional income, to help stabilise their finances.  When her family was struggling to put food on the table, it was difficult for her to stay in school.  And if she cannot attend school when she is growing up, what kind of future will she have when she grows up.  Some have suggested that a child does not need much in order to be happy.  That may be true when she is very young.  Eventually she grows up.  Then what?

Some of the chickens are now in her care.  She seems to enjoy doing that, and is very gentle with them.  

When I visited her two weeks ago, she was so emotional that she could hardly talk.  But she was obviously very happy.  The same is true for all 5 children I visited.  Indeed probably for all children in the program.  

We are so glad that we can serve God’s people with the blessings God has bestowed on us. Yet there are many more like them who could not be covered in programs such as this yet.  So much more needs be done.  Would you kindly consider it?

399 Done

Finally, it is done.  

399 houses provided with electricity from solar panels, wired for LED lighting, phone charging and a small radio powered by rechargeable battery.  

It is not 400 because one was found to be found to be double-counted. 

30 houses were formed into 6 mini-grids.  In each mini-grid, a larger panel and larger batteries support 5 houses clustered close together for greater efficiency.  

The rest are individual systems, each with a 40 watt panel and its own battery. 

There is an experimental communal television powered by a solar panel and battery.  The signal comes from a terrestrial antenna receiving free TV channels. 

There is an intranet server stocked with videos, educational games and teaching material for English, mathematics, etc.  The server is accessible using a smart phone via a wireless local area network.   It is not connected to the Internet.  

An IOT system monitor the health of the system, and connected to the Internet via a local SIM card.  Hence it is can monitored remotely, from Hong Kong. 

This afternoon we dance with the villagers to celebrate. Everyone was having fun.