Penpal Project

Impact

More than 150 underprivileged students from countries including Ghana, Uganda and Mauritius  have had the chance to meet peers from other countries and practice their communication skills in an organized way.

Problem to solve

In both developed and developing countries many underprivileged students have only few outlets for creativity and self-expression. In addition, they hardly ever get the chance to interact with peers from other cultural backgrounds

Our solution

We connect students from different countries through hand written letter exchanges. Each class in a developed country has a partner class in a developing country. Global shapers identify classes and coordinate with the teachers to ensure that each student in each class has a pen friend in the partner class and that letters are written on a regular basis.

What’s next

The eventual objective is to become a hub for students and schools from different countries to interact with each-other. In order to achieve this, the project looks to grow in terms of participating schools/hubs and potentially create an online platform to automate onboarding, management, and exchanges

Conclusion

Two years’ worth of exchanges took places between three schools in the Munich area and one school in Ghana, Uganda and an orphanage in Mauritius. In line with WEF goals, the project was then handed over to the schools in Munich to continue from the next school year.