Kyaninga Inclusive Model School

It was a hectic end of term at KIMS as our older children put their thinking caps on to devise ways to simultaneously support their peers with physical disabilities and to enter the 2023 BIEA STEM competition entitled ‘Greening cities, Sustaining Lives’. The competition was organised by STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and our KIMS school challenge was set by KIMS sister organisation, Kyaninga Mobility, who asked..

“Can you - the children of KIMS – design a balance bike using locally available sustainable resources, which will help our children with physical challenges develop their balance, motor and coordination skills.”

Kyaninga Mobility, part of the umbrella organisation, Kyaninga Child Development Centre, uses locally sourced bamboo to design and make desperately needed wheelchairs and standing apparatus for the 700 children seen by KCDC every month who require mobility equipment simply to make ‘every day possible.’ It was Mobility’s founder, Steve Williams, who came to the children to ask for their help to design Mobility’s next product – a balance Bike.

“Who better design an awesome bike than the children who will be using it!” asked Steve as he introduced the challenge to a class of excited young children!

Sustainability and green awareness were the core themes set by the BIEA STEM competition and to this end our team of bright young minds also looked at the issue of helping to a develop a sustainable income for the hard-stretched families of our children with disabilities.

Having conducted extensive research the team decided that bamboo was the miracle plant they were looking for due to its: fast growth, abundance in our local area, low cost and incredible strength and durability! This having been decided, their first task was to pick up their shovels and go and plant some bamboo in the gardens of our families of children with disabilities. In three year’s time, when the bamboo has grown enough, it will then be sold back to Kyaninga Mobility to build the bikes, providing some small income to the families!

The children then set to designing their bikes. Their visit to the Mobility workshop had taught them the importance of designing, evaluating, building, testing, then re-designing and re-evaluating etc so it was weeks before the children presented their final designs to the critical eyes of our engineers from Mobility who then had the impossible task of choosing a winner! The winning team, Sami, Tate, Ronald and Trevor, were thrilled to know that their balance bike design will now be built in full size as the first proto-type bike to be built by Kyaninga Mobility!

With support from of our compassionate and creative donors, more projects such as this can be enjoyed by the pupils at KIMS where the children learn, not only the importance of inclusivity, but how to actively problem solve to find ways to improve the lives of children with disabilities.