An extraordinary Community Project challenged students to utilise their STEM skills to help make the lives of Kenyan schoolchildren and their families a bit easier.
In partnership with The Amuka Foundation, students were asked to develop solutions for Loruko Primary School in rural Kenya, a school in a pastoral community without running water, electricity, poor hygiene, very low income and a lack of basic resources. Children there are at risk every day and girls especially are often excluded from education.
Community Project Days are a yearly event at UTC Reading, but this year’s event, which took place on Thursday 21 November, was a little different. Rather than tackling a local community issue in Reading (last year’s tackled homelessness) they were asked to look at four issues that could transform the educational experience of students in rural Kenya: access to clean water, security, access to energy and access to education.
Working in teams, and overseen by a number of UTCR’s amazing employer partners acting as mentors, they were asked to find a solution to one of these areas using their STEM skills, and deliver a presentation at the end of the day.
The overall winning team can look forward to an incredible prize – the chance to go out to Kenya next summer to bring their idea to life!
Speaking about the challenge, student Adam, whose team was working on using manure for methane as a sustainable energy source, said: “In this country we see education as a birth right. But to some it’s a luxury. My family are from Tunisia, where the schools can be similar to this one in Kenya, and it makes me extremely sad that kids are in living in those conditions”
Kande’s team was looking at the clean water solution. “We are looking at a system to collect water and how to deter animals and vandals from damaging that system (elephants regularly raid the current rain water storage tanks). Working a project like this makes me feel really grateful, just knowing the things I’m privileged with but take for granted. I feel happy being given this opportunity to try and help though, and I’d be really happy to go to Kenya and implement our idea, but my main goal is to come up with a good solution today.”
Another team had the idea of creating a mobile app which mines cryptocurrency that will pay for a complete redesign of the school. “I think it’s a bit sad that the children are facing these issue where we have all these great facilities here, so we are working on how we can better it so those children can have the same experience as us,” said team member Daria.
Jane Ainslie from The Ambuka Foundation
The challenge was set by the Amuka Foundation, a charity which works with four rural Kenyan schools including The Loruko Primary School. Jane Ainsley, who joined the foundation after a ‘life-changing’ visit to Kenya said: “I think the students here have been inspired seeing the challenges for families within pastoralist communities, who are very poor and where boys are still are still favoured over girls for education. I would love to see a workable solution and see how STEM skills can help to address some of the challenges. I’ve already seen some very interesting ideas on safely keeping elephants away from water tanks.”
At the end of the presentations, four teams have been selected to put their ideas through to the next stage. They’ve now got time to work on their ideas and presentations further before the winners are selected.
A fundraising drive for Loruku Primary School has now begun, and UTC Reading hopes to fill a shipping container with school equipment including textbooks and clothing (shoes in particular) from their families and those of other local schools, and transport them to Kenya.
Speaking on the day, our employer mentors had nothing but praise for the students.
Harry Chandler from AWS (and former UTC Reading student) said: “I was so impressed by the students at UTC Reading—the detailed thought processes they go through and the way they think things through from finances and resources through to design.”
Another former UTCR students, Matteo Filisetti, who is now an engineer at BMW said: “The students came up with great innovative ideas and really showed good initiative and creativity throughout the day. Some of the groups had very impressive answers to the difficult task given to them, I believe the day gave a great insight on how problem solving and STEM subjects can help create solutions in a variety of way.
Sarah Tennant from JLL said: “When I was observing the students, I was really impressed with their diversity of thinking and the wide range of ideas they were coming up with. Everyone had different ideas, and the way they put them together was impressive.”
Laura Fewell from DataX Connect said: “This challenge today was so important — not just as a fantastic learning experience for the students, but as an opportunity to make a tangible difference to a community in need. The level of thought and detail the students put into their projects was inspiring, and I’m excited to find out which team will be flying to Kenya to implement their solution!”
Many thanks to our incredible employers partners who gave their time on the day: Cisco, DataX Connect, JLL, Amazon Web Services (AWS), BMW, Mott MacDonald, AtkinsRéalis and Keele University.
