K-Jo was voted the winner of Space Zone in November 2018. Here she writes about using her £500 prize money to help a charity that supports Palestinian students in Israel, and developing a workshop to inspire them to take an interest in engineering.
If you’re an engineer who’d like funding to support your own STEM outreach activities, apply now for I’m an Engineer, Get me out of here at imanengineer.org.uk/engineers
As I wanted to do something slightly different to the usual thing of travelling around schools, I have searched around for charities that support education. After months of asking around, I finally came upon this wonderful charity called Galilee Foundation. They support education, development and equality within the Palestinian minority in Israel.
I contacted the Galilee Foundation’s Communications & Fundraising Manager, Maha. She has been doing a remarkable job supporting me with starting up my idea. I have put together a few workshops around engineering within the space sector and the opportunities available in engineering. The workshops started in May and ran through till the start of June before the students’ exams. The students are all so fascinated and interested in what I am teaching and are so motivated to learn. It’s wonderful to help students who really want to learn more about what’s in (and out of) our world, and are taking the workshops on with determination to learn.
I have to say a big thank you to Maha and the students in Israel, who are trusting me and supporting me by participating in the workshops. We are all working together with feedback from the students to make the workshops enjoyable for them as it is something for them to enjoy, not to stress over like an exam. All seems well so far and I hope to continue these workshops over the next couple of months and maybe the next few years with the support of Nael (my step-father) who helps translate for me and Maha who communicates my workshops to students in Israel and supports me with future ideas!
I was originally going to spend the money on resources for workshops as I was going to travel to schools and charities in England with different items for each workshop. However, as I kept searching for a charity, I came across the Galilee Foundation which we now do the workshops with over Skype, so don’t need resources. As a big thank you, I will be giving the prize money to the Galilee Foundation to help support present and future students through their education and to fund for more opportunities and workshops like mine.
