Emel 

Sunday March 4, 2012

"Engineered Ingenuity"

Issue 87 December 2011

In the Gaza Strip where the Palestinian people struggle daily due to an uneasy relationship with and an occupation by Israel, students at the Khan Younis Training College decided to build a racing car from scratch. Dr. Ghassan Abu-Orf, the dean of the KYTC campus, became the sponsoring staff member who guided the students to reach their goal.  It took approximately one year for nine girls working just on fund-raising to earn the $70,000 needed for the project.  It was difficult to find any companies who were willing to send the necessary parts and even once they did, the Israeli government would not allow the parts to enter the Gaza Strip.  The students did not give up, but scavenged the parts from any resource they could find including motorcycles and plumbing pipes. The students even had to scramble to find the appropriate tools and machines to turn their salvage into parts worthy for a car.  It took one year to build and the day they took their test drive was emotional for "everyone involved."

It is apparent that the ingenuity and drive that it took Palestinian students, who have rudimentary tools, machinery, parts and lack available materials, is an excellent example of what it means to make something from nearly nothing.  To figure out how to persevere in raising money, finding materials and turning them all into a racing car that runs is surely worthy of note.  Some might argue that students who have such difficult personal circumstances should not be wasting their time on a race car that will do little to improve their situation, but they would be missing the point. The students came together as a team.  Even girls were involved in the process of creating this car.  They learned to fund-raise, find appropriate parts, and to deal with the disappointment of defeat.  They learned perseverance and more importantly how, when everything else has appeared to have failed, to pick up the pieces and use their own human ingenuity to solve the problem and create an object that symbolized all their efforts, trials, and tribulations.

It does not really matter what they built, or even if it could win.  The lessons learned when using ingenuity are so much deeper and richer that they often go unnoticed.  We would do well to all be put in a situation where we reach inside ourselves and create something where nothing once stood, but not with a limitless account or every resource at our fingertips, but when we have to swing and sway in the wind hoping that it will come right and constantly figuring out how to make it happen even when it seems impossible.  That is the curiosity and spirit of ingenuity that makes humans and their creations endlessly interesting.  Yes, we can debate the positives and negatives of what some ingenious creations have brought us, but it is in the task of creation where I find the true test of who we are as human beings.