Join Trinity & Cameron, members of the Midwest Mashup IMPACT team,  as they share their experiences from their day in Abaco! Read about their work at Central Abaco Primary School installing projectors and cleaning up the school, and learn about the educational challenges facing the students.

This morning, we got to once again wake up in beautiful Abaco, enjoy breakfast and devotions with the team and get ready to head out for the day. Today we had the opportunity to go to Central Abaco Primary School to work. Today’s project was especially exciting for Cameron because he got the opportunity to do some electrical work at the school.

We learned that in Abaco, the teachers are responsible for preparing their own curriculum for their classes, and the students are responsible for buying their own workbooks. Many Hands has noticed that this, along with other things, has contributed to the kids having an inconsistent education and varying reading levels. For next school year, Many Hands is providing the first – third grade teachers with a literacy curriculum that will help the students establish strong literacy foundations.

This curriculum uses a lot of technology for presenting lessons, which then presents the problem that teachers won’t teach it because getting access to a projector for a classroom is a lot of extra work. Today, we got the opportunity to fix that problem by wiring the electrical for the installation of 9 projectors in all of the first – third grade classrooms.

The biggest thing Cameron learned… Attics in Abaco are very very hot, probably especially in June. But, being able to work with an amazing team, we were able to finish all 9 projectors. Trinity got the opportunity to be Cameron’s “apprentice” for the day– i.e. learning how to unroll Romex the right way (yes, apparently there is a wrong way), installing electrical boxes, carrying ladders, being moral support and supplying lots of water.

Throughout the day, the team that was not working on the electrical was able to get the school cleaned up, taking out several loads of trash, so that the students have a nice environment to return to on Tuesday. While we were originally disappointed by the fact that the students were on a 4-day weekend holiday, it ended up working out that we were able to serve the students and their education better, by getting a lot done while they were off. To close out the night, we got to walk the beach, have dinner together as a group and go through our Impact discussion. While today was a tiring day, we are so excited to see how God can use those projectors in the lives of the kids at CAPS.

– Trinity and Cameron