Rwanda: engineering change

Mariam helping a class with the kits

As a company which supplies resources to schools and universities, Rapid has always been happy to help charities and individuals doing educational work in the developing world. In recent years we have provided equipment and products for projects in countries such as Tanzania and South Sudan.

So we were delighted to support engineering masters graduate Mariam Olayiwola, who is spending six months as a volunteer in Rwandan schools. Her placement has been organized in collaboration with management consultants Newton, the charity Engineers Without Borders and Great Lakes Energy, a company which provides a network of sustainable solar energy solutions across the central African country.

The objective of the project was to give schoolchildren access to the kind of resources pupils in the UK take for granted. Schools in Rwanda can only afford basic essentials, meaning that science and maths lessons rarely rise above the level of "chalk and talk" exercises. As a result the ability of Rwanda’s most gifted pupils to work as engineers when they leave school is being eroded because of their lack of hands-on experience.

Mariam has been mentored by Newton employee Paul King, whose father Jeremy also runs STEM-based activities in schools. They both joined Mariam in Rwanda in January for a week of intensive teaching and training. The equipment provided by Rapid enabled Jeremy, Paul and Mariam to involve the schoolchildren in a range of practical activities such as building circuits, programming microcontrollers and activating switches. Two main kits were used, to demonstrate the principles of electronic control and solar engineering.

Paul & Jeremy King handing out equipment

It was the first time the children had been able to augment their studies with any kind of practical work.

The value of the project cannot be overestimated. As Jeremy King says: "At a specialist science and technology school I asked the question, ‘what happens when you pass electricity through a motor?’ It took me six minutes to get the correct answer. None of the students we worked with had ever made a circuit or made a buzzer work."

This is all the more remarkable since pupils at the Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology and Rwamagana Lutheran School were actually studying a university-level curriculum. 

Yet it was not long before the classrooms were alive with enthusiasm, learning and discovery, as pupils and teachers got to grips with the activities. "The students were transformed into engineers before our eyes”, said Mariam. “Working through problems, making mistakes, but most importantly enjoying and understanding what they were doing."

The feedback from students and teachers was overwhelmingly positive.

Comments from students included "the workshop was really interesting for me in a way that one didn't like engineering would end up liking it." "I thank you very much so may God reward you, but the time was not very much for me because the lesson was good. My question is that when will you be back for our next lesson. We loved you."

It is hoped that by sharing their new resources and skills, teachers in Rwanda will form hubs which can make fundamental changes to the way the sciences and maths is taught. The benefits are obvious for companies like Great Lakes Energy, which by employing home-grown engineers could expand its mission to bring clean energy to the country. Many villages rely on kerosene and other combustible fuels, which as well as being dangerous are proven to have an adverse affect on a population’s standard of living, health and education.

Physics teacher Robert helping his pupils

Jeremy hopes that another volunteer can be trained from Engineers Without Borders to continue the work after Mariam’s placement ends. UK schools with surplus equipment such as glue guns, battery holders and buzzers are welcome to contact Jeremy so that they can be sent to Rwanda.

For more images and information about the project visit Mariam's blog and the Engineers Without Borders website.