Classroom resource collaboration is crossing global borders with a project that joins Australian students with their international peers.
Menai High School has signed up for the Madiba Project Incorporated, which sends educational materials to Sierra Leone.
The non-profit organisation was established to help relieve the poverty of underprivileged and communities that have been affected by misfortune or natural disaster.
Its overall aim is to enhance the standard of education and to ensure adequate resources and available to students.
Project founder is NSW Department of Education school learning support officer, Mikhail Kallon.
“Part of my role relates to cultural understanding [about inequality],” he said.
“The majority of schools in Sierra Leone do not have a library and if they do they are in desperate need of refurbishment.
“The books are out-dated and do not meet the academic needs of teachers and students.
“Many teachers in Sierra Leone are teaching reading, writing and other subjects without a single textbook.”
An education centre that will become the central site where learning material will be kept has been established in Sierra Leone.
Mr Kallon will ship a container of resources overseas this year, and will travel to Sierra Leone to ensure the beneficiaries receive the materials.
He said more second-hand textbooks and other unwanted items were needed.
“We are in need of anything that can help students in their basic education – bicycles for the kids who walk four of more kilometres to and from school, school furniture, musical or recording devices that will enhance learning, old printers and photocopy machines, computers, clothes, shoes, school bags and sporting equipment.”
Beverley Hills Intensive English Centre is also involved in the project.
