NEWS CORNER
2026
January
Fabian had the opportunity to present our work alongside other projects in Ghana in a video presentation at the African Photonics Hour at the world's largest optics conference (SPIE Photonics West). You can watch the video in the Photos section.
2025
May
Fabian had the honor of presenting our work at the Education and Training in Optics and Photonics (ETOP) conference in Glasgow, UK. The talk addressed both the insights gained and the challenges encountered, and was very well received by the audience.
April
We conducted the 2025 teacher training program in collaboration with the Caroline A. Miller School in Paynesville, Liberia. Thanks to the Photonics Explorer Kits (PEKs) and the openUC2 microscopy boxes, we were able to expand the practical part of our training program. In addition, the first prototype of a science kit developed in collaboration with Dext Technologies (Ghana) was tested.
2024
August
It is with a heavy heart that we have to postpone our workshop planned for September. Due to the Mpox situation, it is not possible to reliably plan a workshop with international travel. However, we are not giving up and will reschedule it for April.
May
During an outreach visit to Ghana, Fabian had the opportunity to visit Dext Technologies Ltd.
in Kumasi, a manufacturer of science kits for schools. We believe that collaboration on the development of optics kits for Ghana and Liberia has great potential and hope that this will lead to
further advancements.
2023
October
We are super excited to announce that Fabian was awarded the Optica Pivoting Fellowship 2023 at the awards ceremony in Tacoma, Washington, for his work in Liberia and beyond. We can't wait to see what his project to develop teaching materials for optics education in Liberia will achieve.
September
With funding from SPIE, Helping Hands Network conducted the 2023 Edition of Teachers Refresher Workshop for 2 weeks at her new Teachers Resource Center in Paynesville, Liberia. A total of 19 teachers participated and were awarded Certificates of Participation.
2022
April
We supported the University of Liberia with handwashing stations, thermometers, and disinfectant to fight Covid-19 and to keep the university open. More information: Frontpage Africa
January
Together with the "Center for Science Education" and support from SPIE, we organized an optics workshop for 15 teachers. Thanks a lot to Jackson Mah and his Team from the "Center for Science
Education" for their work and SPIE for financial support.
2019
August
We successfully completed the teacher workshop with 61 participants. Thank you very much for your support! "Frontpage Africa" is one of the leading newspapers in Liberia reported about our trainings: See here.
June
Fundraising for our Teacher Workshops this summer: GoFundMe
June
Helping Hands Co-Founder, J. Wilfred Zeon was part of the 700 young African leaders selected for the Mandela Washington Fellowship; a prestigious fellowship funded by the US State Department that brings young leaders who are driving change in their respective countries in Africa to the United to participate in an 8 weeks intensive training and networking. While in the USA, Wilfred built networks and showcase our work in Liberia. https://www.facebook.com/200165633335836/posts/meet-our-2019-mandela-washington-fellows-j-wilfred-zeon-is-the-deputy-finance-di/2561670950518614/.
May
The IAU supports us with additional 500€.
2018
December
The International Astronomical Union supports us with 2000€.
August
Meeting at University of Liberia. We reached an agreement with the University of Liberia Department of Physics and Mathematics to serve as "in country" facilitators for the annual teachers refresher workshops.
2016
October
School Experiments project completed.
2015
March
We have provided Ebola prevention supplies to schools in Liberia.
2014
February
3 weeks of workshops for science teachers completed.
2013
December
Registration as NGO in Liberia.