By Gerhard Schmidt | Communications Manager
KIWL has been a tremendous support for our efforts. Through their charity bike ride, and various events coming up like the September 14th Rugby rooftop, the September 27th Video of the ride premiere, November 9th GO GO Run followed by 7 marathons over 7 days and the November 15th Golf Tournament, they have raised over 10,600,000 JPY of funding and are not done yet, allowing us to continue our efforts in the homes we support.
Since our last report we have distributed over 70 computers, and we have expanded to more homes while holding weekly sessions with the various homes in Tokyo and events in Tohoku.
At this point we have distributed 450 computers to over 10 homes. It is not simply a physical donation, but it is also our volunteers and staff continuously visiting the homes to teach digital, and language skills. We know that this continuous support is so important for the kids.
We have also expanded our efforts to provide education as it pretains to children in need becoming digital citizens. We have done this by offering our computer language lession sessions to more and more homes;Ichigo Jam, Scratch, Sphero Bolt, and more.
For language classes we are working with NightZookeeper, which is now providing NZK Missions. (An easier version of the English teaching tool that has many games.) Which has helped us to engage more young students as many are at different levels and some kids have special needs.
This past month we provided over 30 volunteers, funding and support for our 10th annual summer camp for disadvantaged children in Tokyo. 30 kids participated from 3 homes, and through this summer camp we introduced many of the children to the Ichigo Jam class, where they could learn basic programming language to give commands to a robotic car as well as ExcelArt with Ma-chan, the 84 year old programmer with her Mellow Club members.
The kids sat for and received certification in software such as WORD, POWERPOINT and EXCEL. They also presented their AI ideas and POWERPOINT skills to executives at Microsoft.
Moving forward:
We are putting the finishing touches on a new digital citizen's curriculum which we are looking to offer in the coming few months.
We are also be offering support with financial literacy training and career assessments to the older kids. This means gauging their interests, personality and competency, which will then determine possible career paths. We believe this is extremely valuable to help disadvantaged children focus on their future, and how they can thrive in society.
Our partnership with KIWL has been invaluable. KIWL is a diverse group of people but in the diversity we are reminded that we all have more similarities than differences and the main focus of giving back and investing in the childrens' futures will be paid forward for generations to come.
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