Amal Mega Project — Update II
“It is not beyond our power to create a world in which all children have access to a good education. Those who do not believe this have small imaginations.”- Nelson Mandela
It’s been 4 weeks since we dropped our last update. You can check the first blog here. This journey of creating an impact on children’s lives through education has somehow opened our eyes and filled our hearts with joy that we never felt before. These 4 weeks have been full of new learning experiences. Although, the real motive behind this mega project was teaching kids, in doing so we also have learned many things. As Matthew Harvey says, “Teaching is a great way to keep learning.”
The initial goal of our project was to make kids digitally literate and specifically teach them about Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. But when we held our first meetup, we realized that things are not so simple in the real world and we had to go the extra mile towards the expansion of the curriculum. Upon a thorough evaluation of the kids and a meeting with their caretaker, we realized that some kids already have a good understanding of this software and are already practicing it in their school. I must give appreciation to the caretaker of the Sweet Care Home, Mr. Zikriya here, who has been taking good care of these children and providing them the best opportunities like studying in American Lyceum Schools. He has been very supportive through the journey and beyond to make sure every kid benefits from this as much as possible. He has inspired us in many ways and boosted our motivation for serving our little superheroes.
To design our curriculum, we first evaluated the 20 kids for their digital knowledge and divided them into 3 groups based on their knowledge of the digital world. The first group comprised kids aged between 4–6 years who were not capable enough to grasp these complex concepts of the software. The 2nd group consisted of kids between the age of 6–9 who did not have enough exposure but could understand the basic steps. The 3rd group contained kids above the age of 10 who were practicing this software in their school and had enough knowledge to start with.
For the first group, we started with the basics of a computer. We taught them how the folder structure works, how files are created, why there are so many different types of files, what are the advantages of each, how we can cut or copy files, what is recycle bin and how the deleted files are dealt with. After covering the basics, we shifted our focus towards typing. This was specifically due to the request of Mr. Zikriya, the caretaker of the children, who wanted to get their kids hands-on with typing. It was fun when we converted this learning experience into different fun games and the children also started taking interest in it. Last week, we conducted an evaluation session, to test how much the kids were able to absorb, and quite surprisingly, these bright kids have indeed grasped the learning. 5 out of the 6 children in this group scored 90+ in the test while the other one did 85. Indeed, it was pleasing for us too, to see them learning and valuing our efforts.
Now coming to the second group, we decided to teach them the basics of Microsoft Office like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The curriculum was expanded to include graphic designing as well to prepare kids for the upcoming freelancing world. We started by familiarizing them with tools like Canva, Figma, Photoshop, etc. The kids were taught about making a Word file, changing fonts, writing styles, and all the other basics included. We arranged a thorough session on the importance of these software and how they can help kids in different fields of life. We also introduced them to exploring the internet for information. We covered useful tips for Google search and how to find authentic sources. In the last week, a friendly assessment was held to know the pace of kids’ learning capabilities and the results were quite satisfying. A few of the kids were facing some problems and then we repeated and helped them in learning it again. We also introduced ChatGPT and how we can interact with it in English as well as Roman Urdu.
The 3rd group already had cleared the basic concepts of Microsoft Office in their schools, so we tried our best to teach them the intermediate level of this software. We interacted with them along with others and learned that they have a deep interest in Graphic designing and programming. These kids had amazing cognitive abilities and we were at shock to see their potential. They raised the bar very high and made us even more motivated about this project. The shining glare in their eyes, when we told them about the wonders of programming and graphic designing, was something really inspiring. They had an immense thirst for this knowledge and we were grateful to Allah for choosing us as a source of learning. During the assessment, each and everyone did really great in the given tasks and amazed us with their involvement and learning spirit.
The challenges we faced in our journey were also part of our learning experience. The first challenge was, even before starting, that the daughter of the caretaker was hospitalized, and he was unable to give us time to set an introductory meeting. Due to this, our project got delayed by a week and we had to reschedule everything around it. After that, the second challenge was to re-formalize the curriculum as the children were already practicing other things which, at first, we intended to do. Another big challenge for us was to decide the timings of the regular weekly sessions. During weekdays, the schedule of the children was too tight. After school, they had to go to tuition, after which they were scheduled for a Quran session and by the end of it, it was already 7pm. We tried to schedule it after that, but then discarded the idea for two reasons; it would have been hectic for the children and also the hostelite members of our group would have faced difficulty reaching back to their hostel that late. During weekends, we had our Amal sessions too, so we decided to conduct it in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays, and we had to sacrifice our informal sessions too because of this, and who can forget the fine for coming late in the sessions.
But all these hardships were all worth it, after seeing the outcome of our efforts. The children were learning and on top of that, were willing to explore it more on their own. For this, we had to arrange some computers or laptops for them to use. They had one laptop, but it had some issues. On our first priority, before raising funds for new systems, we repaired it so they can start with something and keep practicing. To raise funds for new systems, we contacted different NGOs, Kaar-e-Kamal, Ibn-e-Akram Welfare Foundation, to name a few, but weren’t able to raise funds through them, because they saw it as a luxury to buy systems when the basic needs of some people aren’t met. Well, they were right to some extent too. After these failures, we decided to raise funds from our circle only. As, through statuses and stories, we were already portraying what we had been doing, a lot of friends and family members were familiar with this project, and were willing to help. We haven’t installed systems yet, but are planning to do a market survey next week to buy and install a couple of systems.
Coming to the advertisement part, we had decided to make social media pages and engage the audience with our work. But, the caretaker of the orphanage, Mr. Zikriya, was already onto it. He was handling the media side on their behalf, so we decided to focus on the teaching side only.
Regarding our approach, if I was able to go back in time, with all the knowledge I had now, and restart the project, I will try to arrange an introductory meeting first, and then formalize our plan. We made our plan first and weren’t able to follow it due to different circumstances appearing and not enough knowledge about the audience we were going to interact with. If we had interacted with the children before defining our curriculum, we would not have had to change the curriculum in between.
As the fellowship is going to end in a week or so, we are determined to continue this project even after the fellowship and leave the students with comprehensive knowledge of the digital world. We have decided to sign a contract with Mr. Zikriya for two months so the kids can have a longer opportunity to learn about the digital world. We will be conducting regular weekly sessions till the middle or end of March and then we will be having a final evaluation of the kids. As we planned to install the systems in the orphanage, we would encourage the children to explore more aspects of this field on their own, and if at any point, they need our guidance, we will be just a call away. So, we’ll not be completely cutting them off even after the final evaluation. This will encourage children to keep learning and growing.
In conclusion, we are very grateful to Amal Fellowship, our Program Manager and Program Associate for introducing us to the world of empathy where we can help each other and grow together. Our Mega Project team has put an extreme effort into making all of this possible. Most importantly the kids from Sweet Care Home have retaught us many lessons that we forgot long ago making us nostalgic. The unconditional love of the children, eyes filled with big dreams and their innocent remarks during the lessons have become an inspiration for us to carry on.
To end this, we think that our generation is the pioneer of our younger generation’s mindset. Their accessibility to digital education depends on our capabilities. We are responsible for their education rights and if we can’t even provide them good education the bar of expectation will go low and low until we are left with swords and guns again. So our advice to you is this, “DON’T LET IT HAPPEN”.
