My Tech-Week Experience (Volunteer)

                   “THE MIND ONCE ENLIGHTENED CANNOT AGAIN BECOME DARK” – Thomas Paine

ICT is a said to be an integral part of modern life. Information and communication technology (ICT) in education is important because it has quickly become one of the basic building blocks of modern society.

“Teach me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn” (An ancient Chinese proverb).  This quote came as a reminder of what ICT training does; real-time learning. It goes a long way beyond the theoretical lessons been taught in class we were able to assign two kids to a computer so they could work together and understand better.  These kids were trained on Web Development with the use of JAVASCRIPT, CSS, and HTML through which they were able to design a greeting card with styles and colors of their choice.

 

There were several moments were you could catch a glimpse of the excitement on the faces of the kids who were ready and eager to learn despite the inconveniences. It was one of a kind because Tech-Week was planned to serve these kids who won’t have had such an opportunity if not out of volunteering.

I was put in charge of the coordinating unit which was not my first experience in the case of dealing with school kids. However, this seemed totally different from what I am used to, which was dealing with kids in a religious setting (in a church). Some kids were not really producing outcome as expected after learning during practice. This was a tough moment where I saw myself organizing and motivating the kids and letting them understand that designing is like a language for expressing themselves. At the point, I came to realize that volunteering could bring experiences that call for extra effort than you had prepared for.

Finally, this project has shown me the importance of practical learning – how fast one can learn in a short while, unlike theoretical learning. Also that ICT is the future of human interactivity, and that future is NOW!

Looking forward to TECH-WEEK 2.0

Glory’s Journey With ATLAS

I returned to Nigeria in August 2017 from Cyprus, originally just for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) program which was to last for the next one year. I had studied international relation in Cyprus for a period of three and half years which was an interesting and challenging period.
I first had my volunteering experience during the early period of my return from Cyprus. I volunteered for Deeper Life Bible church, Apo, Abuja, as a team lead of the sanitation unit. During my time as the team lead, I successfully got all the children involved and excited in the sanitation exercise. This was an awesome experience because I had never had the opportunity to work with a large number of children before.
By November 2017, I was posted to Lagos state for my National Youth Service program. Therein, I was assigned to my place of primary assignment at ATLAS initiative, where my full-time volunteering experience began. ATLAS is an acronym for Access to Learning and School, which is a social enterprise that seeks to address issues of inequalities in access to education and learning particularly in marginalized communities. Working at ATLAS wasn’t a coincidence for me, because I knew it was a learning organization and I was interested in my personal development and grooming my passion to serve humanity. I am enjoying my role as a public relations personnel, which means work feels like play for me.
My very recent experience on one of ATLAS’s program, was on the visit to Epe local government area, for the Access2School project. Epe is a small town close to Lekki lagoon on the out sketch of Lagos, which has about 200,000 inhabitants. Although a suburban, Epe is opening up for infrastructural development.

The Access2School project is focused on bridging the learning gaps between vulnerable marginalized children from rural communities by facilitating their return to formal education. On our first trip, we conducted a community mapping exercise, where we identified stakeholders (visiting the local government officers, traditional rulers (OBA’S), community members and NYSC local government Inspector) within the local government. This process had a lot of exciting moments for me, I was opportune to meet with Oba’s of Poka and Dr. S.O Adewale Oluepe of Epe. This I was experiencing for the first time.
This experience has helped improved my level of exposure, and built my confidence as a public relations personnel. I have learnt so much about the Yoruba culture, most especially a lot about Epe as a rural community. I feel a lot of fulfillment knowing I was part of the success story of children being enrolled back into school through the Access2School project. And so this marks the beginning of a new chapter of my life as a volunteer under the platform of ATLAS Initiative.

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