Palisades Charter High School senior, Alexis Stamatelopoulos, has created an ambitious non-profit organization to help educate children in Uganda. By launching a GoFundMe appeal, he was able to buy computer equipment, ship it to a school in the Kabale region of Uganda and host weekly digital classrooms with the students there on a variety of topics, mostly based around cultural differences, such as food, music and literature.
With a last name like Stamatelopoulos, it’s safe to assume that his heritage is Mediterranean and in fact Alexis was born in Athens and says that his family prefer to speak Greek over English when at home.
“Growing up, my parents always believed that education was the most valuable thing anyone could have, so they would always give back to charitable organizations.” Alexis says there’s one called Abaana that is linked to schools throughout Uganda, “My parents would essentially sponsor a kid to go to school, have food and a roof over their head and as I was growing up I'd see the letters from those kids thanking my parents for all that they do for them,” he says.
Demonstrating a rare sense of self-awareness for a 17-year old, Alexis says he understands how fortunate he is and he wants to build something that is dedicated to helping others. The work his parents have done in the past and continue to do has served both as an inspiration and a guide. “My father has visited Uganda a number of times, so that definitely helped,” he says.
Alexis hit upon the idea of using his interest in computers to create what he calls a “digital bridge” where he’s able to use the hardware he purchased to conduct Zoom-based interactions to share knowledge and culture. He launched his appeal in December of last year and by February of this year he had raised $8,000. Then in March, he and his father flew out to the Kabale district of Uganda to set up the first computer lab in a school there.
“We get there and I finally meet the kids for the first time, because I've never met the kids — I've talked to the school director over zoom, but I've never seen the kids,” he says. “It was an eye-opening experience, everything on the entire trip. We were there for about six days and I got to meet all the locals. Some of these kids walk an hour and a half or two hours just to get to school every morning, just seeing, you know how these kids live.”
With his father’s assistance, Alexis was able to bring over and set up 11 computers, plus monitors that he sourced locally and a projector. The second he got back to the US, six of his closest friends said that they wanted to be part of the project. He began giving each of them roles, like website design, fundraising and curriculum structuring and now his organization, which is officially called Vivaio Empower, has extended to include a second school, in Western Uganda.
One of the more sensitive issues Alexis has had to overcome is exactly what to teach the young children of Uganda. “We know they get the core subjects, like math, English and history, so what we wanted to bring was education on different cultures … Last week, we had a presentation on the US, so it consisted of stuff like fashion, entertainment and sports. Football is the biggest sport over there and it's something that really ties them together. So we try to add relatable facts. So it isn't just them just learning a bunch of new things, but more like tying it to how they've lived their life and their experiences.”
While too young to have received any formal teacher training, Alexis clearly demonstrates a natural ability. He undertakes two hours of tutoring every two days at school and he’s part of a “link crew” that mentors ninth graders as they negotiate the high school experience.
Once he himself has graduated from high school Alexis hopes to study mechanical engineering at UCLA and while he aims to pass the baton so to speak, so that the organization can continue to function, he will remain connected.
“At the moment, we have a team of about 46 students, ranging from ninth to 12th grade. I want to pass the baton to next generations and give students the opportunity to face what I have faced, but this is something that I’ve created from the ground up and I still want to be a part of the project in the sense of all the logistics that are involved with it,” he says.
Digital sessions are set up weekly or biweekly and are designed to complement, not replace, regular school classes, Alexis says. “We’re here to introduce kids to a wide range of cool topics, everything can be customized to fit the school’s needs, the kids' age groups, and their cultural backgrounds,” he says.
Along with the constant need for more funding, Alexis says that the biggest problem they’ve had to overcome is the language barrier, which is further complicated by the 11 hour time difference. Fitting all of this into an already packed final year schedule is a struggle, Alexis admits. The team takes shifts in who is going to give the Zoom lesson, plus strategy meetings are held during lunch breaks and all of this has to be undertaken around homework and exam revision.
That said, Alexis is continuing to prove that he and his team have the ability to go from strength to strength as three more schools in Uganda are set to officially sign up in the near future. To learn more about Vivaio Empower, visit the website at vivaioempower.com.
scott.snowden@smdp.com
