
This is a new venture for young people, especially in primary and secondary schools. The School of St. Jude is one institution where both teachers as well as students have taken strong interest in Creative Capacity Building, beginning with 6 students (3 male and 3 female) taking part in CCB training. The students were really excited and took the training very seriously with the support of their institution including their mentoring teacher: Sister Janet. In Creative Capacity Building the students go through the design cycle which help them identify their challenges, gather information, think of ideas, experiment, choose the best idea, work out the details, build it, test it, and finally, get feedback to iterate on their solutions and repeat the cycle. They also get chance to see the existing technologies that other have already developed, and before they start working on their own challenges, they get the chance to build one of the existing technologies.
The most exciting part is seeing students taking every class very seriously as reflected in the above photo. And they always try to reflect the challenges that are facing them either in the school or at home. This was very visible when they made their first maize sheller prototype.
"I learned how to solve different problems that are facing the society using simple means as well as readily locally available materials to make something worthy.”
These “young innovators” affirmed that CCB training is worthy not only to them, but to all young people so that all can find solutions to the challenges that are constantly facing the society in which they live.
Recently, the group grew from six to eleven. This is because the first group of students went with positive experience of the whole meaning of Creative Capacity Building, influencing others to be more interested in CCB training.
Though we have talked a lot about School of St. Jude's participation in Creative Capacity Building, they are just one among many schools Twende-AISE has reached with CCB training. In the past year, we have managed to reach 201 number of students with Creative Capacity Building.
The first St. Jude group is now working on another challenge that aims at environmental conservation. That is, they are making a device to mix waste paper with the intent of designing a press to make charcoal. The main reasons behind this project is:
- To clean the surroundings (of their school's compound)
- To conserve trees from being cut