With the annual global celebrations for World Space Week in full swing, and the UNAWE International Conference 2013 taking place, it's a busy week for astronomy outreach! To add to the excitement, UNAWE is delighted to announce the beginning of a new partnership with HE Space Children's Foundation (HESFC)! Together the two programmes will work to promote space education in school curricula all over the world, based on a shared vision that education is the greatest asset a child can acquire to ensure opportunities for a better life. The new cooperation will use the beauty and grandeur of the Universe to inspire young children, particularly those from underprivileged backgrounds such as orphans and homeless children, and encourage them to develop an interest in science and technology.
Like UNAWE, HE Space Children's Foundation is a non-profit organisation fathered by HE Space, a specialised recruitment company with over 30 years’ experience in the space sector . The foundation supports a number of short and long-term projects that are committed to improving the quality of education for children around the world, with a focus on underprivileged regions such as Uganda. This can refer to traditional training or supplying textbooks, it also covers things like supplying clean water to schools, or building another classroom to cut down on class sizes.
Although the partnership between UNAWE and HE Space Children's Foundation is a recent development, the two programmes first collaborated back in 2012, when the foundation supported a project organised by UNAWE in Timor-Leste, a country in South-East Asia. The project took place during the Transit of Venus, a spectacular once-in-a-lifetime occurrence that could be seen from very few regions around the world, one of which was Timor-Leste. The country is relatively young and had never before been introduced to astronomy. The events held as part of this project were tremendously successful at engaging local adults and children and getting them excited about space science; 3800 people attending the observing event alone!
With this new cooperation the programmes hope to continue the success of Timor-Leste on a wide-range of future endeavours. To begin, UNAWE will be providing a Universe in a Box educational toolkit to each project running under HE Space Children's Foundation.
If you have a project that sounds like it shares common goals with the foundation, you can apply for support by emailing: btenberge@hespace.com.
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