If I was going to row across the Atlantic I wanted it to be for more than just my own personal need for adventure. My wife, Sarah, and I both had the opportunity to attend MIT – the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an incredible science and engineering university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. What’s tragic though is that in South Africa, not every child gets the education they need. It breaks my heart when I hear stories like Judy’s.
There were times when Judy’s mother wasn’t able to pay the electricity bill and their little home would be plunged into darkness. Judy loved school. She wanted to do well. She wanted an education and she wasn’t going to let a lack of electricity stop her from getting it. She would take her schoolbooks and go sit on the pavement and finish her homework in the light of a streetlamp. Her determination paid off. She ended up going to Columbia University in the USA and was also a Mandela Rhodes scholar. Recently, she bought her mother a new home.
Nelson Mandela
In order to help kids get the education they need in order to achieve their dreams, Streetlight Schools has designed a low-cost, innovative primary school model. Their approach is unique. They focus on enquiry, collaboration, exploration, relevance and the use of technology to teach and learn. It empowers students to master core skills, it inspires curiosity and a love learning in them in four ways: collaborative learning, technology-enabled classes, project-based learning and instruction.
Streetlight then set up a pilot project to make sure they were heading in the right direction. Its success was greater than they had hoped for. In January, 2015, in partnership with affordable housing providers Bjala, they launched an experimental education centre. The results were amazing. The first school opens in January, 2016.
I want to help them do that! Won’t you join me?
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Tibetan proverb
