Lego donation from Estonia helps Kenyan girls build science skills
Dozens of kilograms of Lego bricks donated to an Estonian NGO are being eagerly embraced by girls in Kenya.
The donations aim to get more girls interested in science and engineering, and are already proving worthwhile.
Practical teaching aids and games are so costly in Kenya that they are beyond the means of many families, explained Emily Mirelle Vutt of NGO Mondo, which spearheaded the donation drive.
"Gender inequality is greater in Kenya," Vutt told Vikerraadio, noting "in Kenya, software developers and programmers tend to be men." Vutt lives for much of the year in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
"So we specifically targeted girls in order to give them more opportunities and increase their self-confidence, so that they too might see themselves working in science and technology one day."
The solution for NGO Mondo was to call on people to donate used Lego bricks of all shapes and sizes. These could even be used to teach robotics, for instance in Kisumu, a port city on Lake Victoria.
"We had a project where we provided robotics training to teachers in the rural Kisumu region of Kenya, who then run robotics clubs for children at schools," Vutt continued.
While often taken for granted as part of a European or American childhood, Legos are not as widespread in Kenya.
"It has been scientifically proven that Lego helps girls in particular take a step closer to science. The girls all did very well. Although they had never seen bricks like these before, they immediately started looking at how they could use them to build, for example, a motorcycle. Motorbikes are the main means of transport in Kenya," Vutt noted.
"One teacher told me that we had only seen robots in films, and now we can actually put them together with our own hands, and she was so happy. It was very nice to hear that," Vutt added.
Another issue in the country is that many children drop out of the school system, as they have to help out at home or to support their families, and do not have the money to go to school.
Vutt said when she first moved to Kenya, it took some getting used to. "But eventually you start to see the beauty in those differences," she added.
The tally of donated Lego bricks received by NGO Mondo was around 50 kilos all told, Vutt said. Since the average weight of a Lego brick is 1.67 grams, this figure would amount to around 30,000 bricks.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Annika Remmel
Source: "Vikerhommik", presenter Margit Kilumets
