KIGALI, RWANDA – Pierre Ababyeyi, a 22-year-old secondary school graduate in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, says he has never let poverty stop him from inventing, experimenting and pursuing science projects.
“When I think of something new, I immediately start making it,” Ababyeyi says. “Looking at things as if they were magic has never been my thing.”
Ababyeyi completed a course on building microscopes in 2010 while a student at the Association of Parents for the Promotion of Education to Rwanda Secondary School. The course inspired him to build one of his own, he says.
But poverty at home and poor facilities at school hindered his ambition. He spent an entire year brainstorming how he could build the instrument without any materials, he says.
“When I got the idea of creating a microscope, I hadn’t got any material,” Ababyeyi says. “I overcame this simply by using the available materials I could afford. That’s how I achieved my goal.”
He gathered any item that he thought could be useful, including parts of a secondhand radio and pieces of ballpoint pens. Once he had acquired enough parts, he built the microscope in only two days, he says.
Ababyeyi improved on his prototype in 2012 and built a second microscope using similar objects that he had found. His talent impressed school administrators, who paid for his last year of studies to show their support of his latest project. They also invited lab technicians from the Rwanda Biomedical Center, a Kigali research laboratory and health center, to view his new microscope.
Schools in Rwanda lack adequate science equipment and materials, says Aloys Nsabimana, the headmaster of Ababyeyi’s secondary school. Although many students want to succeed in the sciences, inadequate facilities hinder their progress.
“I think the reason behind the delay of the Rwandan students’ knowledge is lack of enough resources,” Nsabimana says. “There are many students who really need it. They are talented. They have many inventions.”
Schools need microscopes, chemicals and other laboratory equipment, Ababyeyi says. Without these items, aspiring scientists cannot realize their full potential.
The Rwandan government cannot provide this equipment to schools for science projects and inventions, says Jean de Dieu Mushumba, Ababyeyi’s classmate.
This makes Ababyeyi’s resourcefulness stand out.
“For instance, when I see someone who has a cover of a used radio,” he says, “I ask for it and use it instead of leaving it useless.”
He used clay to build a furnace that melts iron at 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit), he says. He constructed an oscilloscope, an instrument that reads electrical signals, with discarded parts of old appliances and plastic bottles. He created sodium hydroxide by mixing urine, salt, and water left over from boiling vegetables, which he allowed to sit for three days.
Ababyeyi always wanted to know more about how things worked, says his mother, Mariane Kagaju. She and his father had to watch him carefully while he was growing up because he tinkered with dangerous appliances and machines.
He used iron sheets to build a small helicopter in 2006, she says. When he plugged the device into an outlet in their living room, it floated into the air, hit the wall and exploded.
Kagaju says she is unhappy that she cannot provide him with the resources to improve his inventions.
“It hurts me a lot to realize that I don’t have means to provide my son with all that he wants,” she says, “because I’m confident he can achieve a lot of beautiful things.”
Ababyeyi’s self-motivation impressed his teachers, Nsabimana says.
“When Pierre planned to make the microscope, he looked for materials himself,” he says. “He actually didn’t ask anything from us.”
The school offered him space in its laboratory to construct the microscope.
At the invitation of administrators, lab technicians from the Rwanda Biomedical Center viewed the microscope at the school in 2012. Technician Morris Twahirwa writes in an email interview that the microscope worked, but it lacked high resolution and was unable to produce high-quality images.
Ababyeyi says that if he had access to better materials, he would create a microscope suitable for large hospitals and laboratories.
Ababyeyi is a role model for other students, Mushumba says. But he is capable of much more.
“Pierre would make a lot of beautiful things if he could get enough resources,” he says. “His inventions are important for the country as a whole, and they can tell the world that Rwanda has got scientists.”
Throughout Rwanda and Africa, talented students would benefit from better science facilities at school, Mushumba says.
The government of Rwanda has already begun implementing strategies to improve science education and provide greater resources to science students, says Christine Gasinzigwa, the director of science education and research at the Ministry of Education.
For example, the ministry plans to establish “living labs” in schools to teach students about the environment, she says.
“How can you teach students erosion without showing them what it looks like?” she asks. “We are planning to establish these labs where students will get a chance to pour a lot of water in soil and see how it works.”
Ababyeyi plans to attend university to continue his science education. But he was unable to afford university this year, he says. He is applying for scholarships and jobs to earn money for school.
He will continue to invent no matter what challenges he faces, he says.
Interviews were translated from Kinyarwanda.
