Madeleine Pachella and Jada-Lynn Baez, both eighth graders at Pelham Middle School, used online sessions to teach students of the Ikirwa Primary School in Tanzania how to do research on Google, and how to use Google Slides and Docs to present information.

The effort was the eighth grade community project for both Pelham students. According to Baez, the Ikirwa school didn’t have a good connection to the internet, so the students were disconnected from the Google Meet every couple of minutes and had to move to another area to try to join again.

Working with the primary school, Baez said she learned not to take things she used every day for granted. She said she also appreciates what people have and has become more aware that people in other countries may not have the same resources as people in the United States.

“We are really lucky to have all the technology that we have,” said Pachella. “Seeing them for the first time, only for five minutes, they were in awe with the computer that they’ve barely seen. They didn’t know how to use it, and their eyes were just wide. It’s just crazy that we have all this technology and some people don’t.”

Pachella and Baez were honored with the Heart of Pelham Jr. Award by Pelham Together for the work they did with the students in Tanzania.

The final project that the Ikirwa students did was a Google Slides presentation describing an animal using research they had done through Google searches.

“It really expanded their horizons with how much they could learn because they were so limited, but the internet can teach you so much,” said Pachella, “They didn’t have that before.”

“Receiving the award made me realize how big of an achievement it was to work with them and teach them everything that they learned as I worked with the,” she said. “It really just meant a lot because it showed how hard we worked.”