Belize City Opens its First USpace Hub

This morning, the Leo Bradley Library in Belize City opened the doors to the USpace hub. This space offers resources for children to explore their curiosity in science and technology and experiment with digital tools that they may not have had access to. This USpace is the seventh to be launched in the country by the Ministry of Education and UNICEF. News Five’s Britney Gordon provides us with more details.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

The seventh Uspace hub was launched this morning in Belize City. This addition wraps up the Ministry of Education and UNICEF’s initiative to equip all six districts with one of the hubs. Minister of Education Francis Fonseca expressed his satisfaction with the success of the project.

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education

“We think it’s a very exciting initiative. We’re very happy that we were able to get support from UNICEF. We’ve partnered with them. You know, so, and it’s a team effort. We’re working; it’s not only the Ministry of Education; it’s also the Ministry of Culture Niche in particular. All of us are working together really to create kind of transformative spaces, community spaces where, as I said, our young people can feel comfortable, where they can come to be creative, to express themselves. So, that’s the whole purpose of this. And yes, we have; this is the seventh one across the country. And we hope, with the support of organisations like UNICEF, that we’ll be able to do more in the future.”

 

The hub provides students with a safe space to learn about information technology and other topics. First-form student at Pallotti High School, Haily Chan, is grateful that she and her peers have access to a place to conduct research near their school.

 

Haily Chan, Student, Pallotti High School

“I feel it is a more engaging experience. So when we, like from my first form, there’s a lot of our students that would need to do research. So we could just, after school, come over here, do our research, and if it doesn’t help, there’s always the books. Before they didn’t have the internet, but now they’re going to have it, so now you can do the research. It’s easier. Some people don’t like using books, so it’s going to be more helpful for us to be using the internet.”

 

Each district in Belize is now equipped with at least one USpace; however, Director of Science and Technology at the ministry, Namrita Balani, says that they are hopeful that more can be introduced throughout the country.

 

Namrita Balani, Director, Science and Technology

“There’s so many schools around, right? We have so many initiatives that we’ve launched. Some schools are piloting it. Some don’t. Some students want access to it, but their school isn’t doing it. So we said that we use space. When we thought about the space, we said we needed a curiosity space. We needed a space where people could create, where they could innovate, where they could experiment. And it has to be a safe space, right? You have to have people that were trained with the different initiatives. And we made sure that the space is filled with the tools that the students can use, but also the people here are trained with the different initiatives. And of course, it has to be inclusive.”

 

Balani explains that due to the ideal location of this USpace, students of Belize High School will collaborate with the ministry to provide mentorship to other schools. Karii Domingo, who has been studying robotics since she was eight years old, shares how excited she is to help other students foster a passion for her favourite subject.

 

Karii Domingo, Student, Belize High School

“I am now a mentor, but I was able to gradually work up the steps in robotics. So I started off as a member, doing the small Lego robots, and went on to be able to go to Singapore with bigger robots for another competition called First Global. And then another competition called First Robotics, where we got to go to Oklahoma and then make it to the Nationals. You build up. I hope that people or younger students are able to follow in my path. Whereas you start from, you’re learning about robotics, and you get to eventually get up to the part of being a mentor like I am now. I feel like USpace is an incredible opportunity for this because it helps young people like myself back then to have the opportunity to be able to learn more about robotics.”

 

The hub is equipped with a robotics kit, Wi-Fi, and other educational resources.

Namrita Balan

“We have this Lego wall, we have some Chromebooks, we have a desktop computer, and we launched People’s Archive, which is beautiful, where everyone can write history. And there’s a scanner; you can bring photographs that you can scan to it. We have the Lead Like a Girl programme, where we want to expose, encourage, and support girls in tech and just a lot of things happening. So we needed a space where we could equip it with tools. And students can come, and anyone, well, students, teachers, and the community can come and use it.”

 

The space has no age restriction and is available for all to visit.

 

Karii Domingo

“Many people that don’t have the opportunity; they won’t be able to fully know what this is about. But, given the opportunity, then many people can find their calling in technology, maths, or anything with STEM. If you have the chance to, I feel like everyone should come to USpace in order so that they can have that spark.”

 

Britney Gordon for News Five.