Jacob Riesel – Class of 2016 – Rabbi Fox Scholarship

In 2016, I was 1 of the 2 proud recipients of the Rabbi Brian Fox Scholarship, a scholarship which encourages students from within the Emanuel School community to set up a self-sustainable project upon their graduation. I used the scholarship to visit Nepal where I spent just over a month teaching English and helping with construction projects.

During my time in Nepal, I recognised a certain need for teacher education. There were times, for example, where I was given an English examination paper for Years 1 and 2 students, that I was unable to complete due to the poor language skills demonstrated by the teachers and the distinct lack of resources teachers have access to. Given Nepal still uses a caste system which ranks teachers in the 2nd highest caste (one below royalty), many teachers are thrown into the teaching world with little to no education as they were simply born into the occupation.

For this reason, I have identified that there are 2 main needs in Nepal that the Emanuel School community can tend to in the long term – education and resources. In terms of education, there are a few things we can do to help. Firstly, I would like to bring Hari Poudel to Australia. Hari Poudel is a teacher from a small village in Nepal named Ghatchhina. Over the past few years, especially since the devastating earthquake in 2015, Hari has dedicated much of his time and money into helping both his village and surrounding communities with various projects including the construction of a community centre and a bridge across a heavily flowing river, which was destroyed in the earthquake. Hari has an incredible belief in educating the next generation and has also recently built a Learning Centre in the back of his house where he helps the village children with their homework and runs short classes before and after school.

With Hari’s passion for teaching, this project is looking to bring him to Australia where he can learn how to teach English and run a bilingual learning program in a new and perhaps more efficient manner through spending time in both Kensington Public and Emanuel Schools. Our aim is not only to bring Hari to Australia to learn, but to give him access to such resources so that upon his return to Nepal, as a respected member of the community, he is able to educate other teachers and give them access to the new learnings he would have gathered.

Following this, we will also be looking to set up a Teachers Teaching Teachers scholarship which will allow teachers from Kensington Public and Emanuel to visit Nepal to run teaching programs for other teachers in surrounding villages during the summer holidays.

In conjunction to this project, we will be collecting good quality second hand laptops to be used in Hari’s learning centre to increase the access to such technology for both teachers and students. For any laptop donations, please feel free to contact me on 0415 424 008 or drop them to Maxine Chopard’s office.

To get Hari here though, we will need the help and support of everyone reading this! For those wishing to contribute, get involved or just wanting to read more, please click on this link and thanks in advance! Bring Hari to Australia