New Projects
With the successful conclusion of a series of education initiatives, the Heartwood Foundation has cast a new series of pressing initiatives within Rwanda. As an active think tank, Heartwood will pair each following project with both thought and action: producing research and policy proposals while directly collaborating with the educators and students it aims to support.
1. STEM Program Development
The nation of Rwanda enjoys the rare privilege of favorable journalistic coverage on nearly every front: economics, business, lawfulness, environmentalism. Since the conclusion of the genocide, it has sustained an average GDP of 9.2%. Landlocked, it has set its economic goals towards ecotourism, information-technology, and finance. It aims to be the info-tech hub of East Africa. However, it is also among the smallest and most densely populated nations of Africa. Both for its pre-existing challenges and economic goals, Rwanda will have an acute need for clean energy.
In 2021-2022, Heartwood will establish partnerships between Rwandan and US STEM schools for the development of engineering programs, teachers, and curricula.
2. Classroom Pedagogy
Rwanda’s economic vision to be the information-technology hub of East Africa calls for a predominantly educated citizenry. Meanwhile, approximately 40% of its population is under the age of fourteen. The demand for an effective national, K-12 curriculum paired with a workforce of teachers to implement is of immanent importance.
Heartwood will introduce a specific K-12 school program model that has been thoroughly tested and proven in numerous African nations to: rapidly train and equip new teachers with experience-based pedagogical methods, while condensing national curricula but significantly improving student exam scores and retention. In other words, Heartwood would like to demonstrate that a critically-minded approach to education can save time and money while improving standards and experience.
3. International Classroom Conferences
Given Rwanda’s longstanding and multi-faceted relation with the United States paired with its digital prominence in its region, Heartwood will begin a program of regular, virtual meetings between US and Rwandan classrooms, wherein students will learn and inquire of one another’s circumstances, views, nations, culminating in a collaborative project of their choosing.