A young boy attends a summer camp for refugee youth in Ottawa’s east end. The summer camp is run by the Catholic Centre for Immigrants thanks to funds from Community Foundation of Ottawa (CFO).
The goal of the camp is to prepare these young people for school in September… and much more besides. The two-week day camp presents information on nutrition, health, non-violent conflict resolution, and self-esteem. It is also an opportunity to make friends, and visit recreational facilities, libraries, movies, and museums. Newcomer youth work on their English language skills, but also on their integration, exploring everyday life experiences, such as shopping, medical appointments, and talking to fellow classmates.
Today, youth are learning about how fiber optics carries information between computers in the form of light. They also watched a video on a new solar powered drone that can bring internet to remote parts of the world. The drone is called “Aquila” and was developed by a team of engineers at Facebook. Aquila will beam internet from the sky for up to 90 days at a time at a fraction of the cost of cell towers or fiber optic networks.
When asked what were the benefits of Aquila, youth answered: “Maybe the internet could improve health care through tele-health and villagers could take online courses with access to the internet. ”