Jared's Gap Year#
Jared learned what TEN3 was doing during his senior year of high school. He decide to take a gap year before proceeding to college and invest a year in making a difference for children and teachers in Africa. Here is his experience. |
Over the past year God has given me the opportunity to work with TEN3, a ministry dedicated to improving and making accessible education to less-fortunate students in Africa. While working with TEN3 I managed the Future of Education Project (FEP) which is a project that allows students to learn reading, spelling, speaking and arithmetic skills through modern technology such as android tablets.
During the first half of the year I helped edit and revise TEN3's curriculum as well as build the system the students and teachers would use to import, set up, and use the curriculum on the tablets. Near the middle of the year I got the opportunity to travel to Tanzania for a month to actually test and deploy this project into an after school program at a local school.
I also got an opportunity to meet and make friends with the local people and experience their incredibly rich and fascinating culture. I was able to try their food, experience traditional events, and observe the diverse wildlife all while helping to implement the Future of Education Project. When I came back from Tanzania I used the computer programming skills I had learned over the past couple of years to develop an arithmetic app for the students to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The app has since been deployed and is now being used by the students in Tanzania. I was able to learn many valuable and practical skills through this year long experience such as communication, problem solving, training, leadership and even computer programming. I also grew in my relationship with God through this experience and developed a greater sense of gratitude as well as a more patient attitude. My time spent working with TEN3 and living in Tanzania was a real God given, eye-opening experience and was a great opportunity to learn new skills, step out of my comfort zone, and deepen my relationship with God.
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Jared Winkins
Houghton Academy Graduate 2021
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