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A group of Ryerson student volunteers travelled to Kenya for a month to live, learn and work with youth in the village of Dago.

On May 1, 14 students from the Ryerson-based group Alternative Spring Break (ASB) left Toronto to promote sustainable agriculture, help host the Kick it With Kenya Youth soccer tournament, and teach math and science at the community school in Dago. ASB is a student-run group that travels abroad to volunteer in developing countries. Ryerson students have a longstanding relationship with the Dago community, having established a loan program and beekeeping enterprise in 2012.

For first-time ASB volunteer and second-year math student Sophia Park, the month-long journey combined her passion for travel with her desire to make a difference. Park developed a math program proposal with ASB project coordinator Francesca Piacente. The project, aimed at engaging more girls in math, was supported by Imogen Coe, dean of the Faculty of Science.

“Dr. Coe wanted us to promote math and science,” Park said. “She’s a big supporter of women in science.”

Originally, the program was planned as an extension of ASB’s girls’ empowerment club at the all-girls orphanage, Dago Dala Hera (“Home of Love”). However, it became a girls’ math club for the school’s class six girls – the equivalent of Ontario’s Grade 6 – due to a scheduling conflict with the orphanage.

“As we expected when we got to Dago, everything didn’t go exactly the way we had planned it, but I think overall it was very successful,” said Park.

She added, “It was really fun. I tried to stay away from having a second math class, because they were already in school during the day. I tried to just make it a little bit more fun, more along the lines of encouraging them to do math and making them think ‘oh, math is fun, maybe it’s not just for boys.’”

Park used a variety of approaches to teach math. For the most part, she engaged students in fun activities, such as origami to teach shapes and logic puzzles to sharpen critical thinking skills. By far, the girls’ favourite math activity was arithmetic Bingo.

“They liked it so much that they wouldn’t tell me when they won, because they didn’t want the game to end,” Park said.

The ASB team purchased everything they needed for the program from the community in an effort to support local businesses. They gave the girls geometry sets as a reward for participating in the math club, not that the girls needed encouragement since attendance exceeded Park’s expectations.

“I could tell the girls really liked the math club by how many started showing up,” said Park. “The first one was only eight, and then the next one was about 13 or 14, and it just kept growing. The last one was over 30.”

Some of the ASB team members helped teach regular classes in the school. Park and another team member went into the class six math and class four science courses, and taught lessons based on the school’s curriculum. In the end, after handing out the geometry sets to the girls, Park left two sets behind for the school to use in class.

“I learned a lot,” reflected Park. “I don’t know how to sum up everything that I learned. I think that I was inspired by the kids there and how hardworking and motivated they are.”

For more information on ASB students' adventures, visit www.asbryerson.tumblr.com.