University of Miami Mauritania OLPC
Motivation
A team of two Ph.D students from the University of Miami, Florida [1] have teamed up with Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) in Mauritania to deploy XO laptops to two of the Girls Mentoring Centers (GMCs) across the country. Specifically, we will work with thirty-five 6-12 year old females in Kiffa [2] and sixty-four in Kankossa [3] for nine weeks from June-August, 2009. While several GMCs in larger cities have assisted Mauritanian females to further their education via university, there has only been one female in Kiffa known to continue her education at the college level. In addition, working in these two rural sites guarantees 1:1 laptop saturation. We believe access to and ownership of XO laptop technology at a young age will enable females in Kiffa and Kankossa to take control of their education, thus empowering the next generation of African women, their families, and Mauritania. In doing so, OLPC and Peace Corps will help reduce the educational gender gap in Mauritania, while providing students an avenue to develop creatively and academically. The GMCs are currently run by PCVs and local Mauritanian volunteers; while PCVs will remain at the GMCs for one year following our departure, the goal of local, long-term sustainability means these centers will be run solely by Mauritanians in the near future.
Collaboration
We hope to collaborate with five other OLPC groups applying to work in Mauritania. Our vision is by connecting students among the various GMC sites via XO laptops, they will serve as motivation for each other. Illiteracy is a challenge when working with youth in Mauritania. As such, we have organized with the Cornell OLPC group to implement a pen-pal system between our sites to encourage writing, reading, and exploring their own culture in various languages. All 22 GMCs in Mauritania have, or are in the process of getting, internet access. In addition, each has one or more volunteers who serve as technical support for the multi-media and computer classes. This volunteer will provide technical support during our deployment period and will continue to work and maintain the XO laptops at the GMCs following our departure. Every GMC site has several bilingual PCVs who will function as translators between us and the local youth and GMC mentors.
Eco-Health Camp
There is an opportunity to introduce XO laptops to a group of 40 Mauritanian females coming to Kankossa in July. Eco-Health Camp is designed to introduce and discuss the environment and other health topics. This environmentally focused conference of Mauritanian youth could benefit greatly from access to XO laptop technology. While communication with the leaders of this camp is necessary to discuss specific curricular details, activities such as “Moon,” and content collections, such as “Nature Images,” “Biology,” and “World Factbook Maps,” are just a few ways XO laptops could motivate these females to become agents of environmental change.
“My Story”
As Ph.D students in African literature, we know the value of documenting oral stories and histories from rural areas of Africa. While this act of documentation is beneficial for reading publics, our primary goal is to inspire youth to value and share their own life stories. We plan to utilize XO microphones to have youth orally recite any personal story they deem important. The paint capabilities of XO could be used to add visual dynamics to oral components. One long-term goal of “My Story” is to have each female transfer her oral story to the written page. Access to “Speak” may serve as motivation for students whose writing skills can enable their XO to speak their story. We plan to collect these stories on a collaborative website which could be used by other OLPC groups looking to deploy similar projects in their regions.
Fundraising
We are in the process of fundraising and have written letters to Rotary International, Lions Club International [4], and Kiwanis International [5]. As a former Rotary Youth Exchange Student, Stephanie has permission to contact and give power point presentations to several Rotary Clubs in district 6220 [6] in conjunction with fundraising for OLPC Mauritania. In addition, we plan to contact and pool resources with several University of Miami organizations, such as the African Student’s Union [7], and Amnesty International UM Chapter [8].
Housing Laptops Laptops will be shipped to Nouakchott and received by PCVs. We will hire a car to transport the laptops to Kiffa. They will then be housed in the Kiffa and Kankossa GMCs.