FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 15, 2008
Contact Ben Chambers, (770) 537-5756
WEST CENTRAL INSTRUCTOR, STUDENTS WORKING IN AFRICA
A West Central Technical College welding instructor and three of his students will be putting their skills to work this month as they travel to Uganda to volunteer at a missionary school.
This will be instructor Scott Eidson’s third trip to Uganda, but the first “welding trip,” as he described it. It’s also the first where he’s involving students. Accompanying Eidson will be students Jim Anderson and Caleb and Willis Robinson, brothers who are both in West Central’s welding program.
The men will be building a large cookstove which will be used to feed students at the missionary school.
“They’re feeding about 350 students twice a day on what is essentially an open fire,” Eidson said, “and one woman is doing all the cooking. We saw the need for the wood-burning stove on a previous trip and have been working for a year to get everything set up to build it.”
The stove will be about 2-feet by 2-feet by 8-feet long, Eidson said, with four cooking compartments.
“I think it truly shows the giving spirit of our College when one of our instructors takes on a project like this where students will use the skills taught in the classroom for the greater good,” President Dr. Skip Sullivan said.
“Our College is about serving our community,” he said. “That spirit of service takes on many forms, and as our world becomes more of a global community, we hope to extend our reach beyond what is traditionally thought of as our community to the world-at-large.”
One of the vendors West Central Tech buys welding supplies from donated 500 lbs. of welding rod, Eidson said, when they heard about the project to Africa.
“We’ve been working a long time to get all the supplies we need to go,” Eidson said. “We sent a welding machine, torches, grinding wheels and some other equipment over last fall.”
Eidson said he was able to buy the equipment at cost through another supplier. “When they heard the type of trip it was and that we were using our own money to fund this, they helped us out,” he said.
Eidson bought the welding equipment himself, and he and all three students are funding the trip out of their own pockets, he said.
Eidson’s contact at the Ugandan school is Tommy Harris, a West Central Technical College alumnus and electrician by trade. Eidson said Harris has even taught classes at West Central as an adjunct instructor himself, while on furlough from the mission field.
Eidson, Anderson and the Robinson brothers will be gone 11 days, actually being on the ground in Uganda for eight days. They leave February 21.
“I’m excited about being able to take some of my students with me this time,” Eidson said, “and actually do a welding project while I’m there.”
West Central Technical College, with campuses in Carroll, Coweta, Douglas and Haralson counties, offers over 90 associate degree, diploma and technical certificate programs of study. A unit of the Technical College System of Georgia, West Central last year served over 10,000 students including credit enrollment, adult education, ESL classes, continuing education and corporate training.
Other News |
