OLPCorps BostonUniversity Kenya
Team Members
- Patrick Capello - Boston College '09 - Communications
- Anurag Goel - Boston University '12 - Engineering
- David Han - Boston University '12 - Political Science
Introduction
The Kibera slum is located in Nairobi, Kenya and is the largest slum in Africa. Each day children die of malaria, dysentery, and AIDS. It is not uncommon to see multiple students pass away throughout the course of the school year. This is Kibera, one square mile for one million people, where children are isolated in a world of poverty.
Spurgeon’s Academy is situated in the Kibera slum and was founded by Fred Outa with the purpose of providing orphan children in Kibera an opportunity to become successful members of society. The school provides children a safe environment, food, and most importantly a nurturing environment in which adults passionately care for the children. The school operates on a trimester schedule but is open during weekends and vacation. The students at Spurgeon’s are bright, motivated, and often come to school on weekends and vacation to learn and seek a caring environment and often, to have a meal. Spurgeon’s Academy currently has about 420 students and about a 100 of the students are in our target age group (6-12).
XOs
Knowledge is power and our team believes that an education is key for a child’s social mobility, and empowers children to shape their own lives. Hence, our goal in distributing the XO laptops is to provide as many opportunities for learning as possible. First, 100 laptops can inspire a passion for learning amongst the children of the Kibera slum. With a laptop and an Internet connection, children can have fun playing games testing their analytic prowess, write letters to friends across town, and publish their ideas and projects for the world to see.
While inspiring children to learn is the first and most important step in our proposal, we must create tangible opportunities for achievement readily available in order to turn our project from a good memory to a stable foundation for the children of Kibera. In Kenya, there are a series of national exams to determine whether a child can proceed forward to the next level of schooling, namely high school. Since the Spurgeon Academy is dreadfully short of textbooks, school supplies and even a blackboard, utilizing the laptops as a study resource is the best opportunity for a child to attend high school. We will work very closely with the teachers of the Spurgeon Academy to develop curriculums for the children, including one that best utilizes the laptops to prepare the older children (11 and 12 year-olds) for the national exams.
Finally, we will create a website that first, documents every step of the implementation of our project (in order maintain maximum transparency), and secondly, showcases the achievement of the children, be it projects, ideas, stories, pictures, etc. Major Projects
Power -
The Spurgeon Academy now has electricity. However, this power is not reliable. Our team plans to use solar panels to charge the laptops. With additional funding, our team would also like to purchase a generator.
Internet – [working on it]
Sustainability
We believe simple solutions are usually the best, and always the most sustainable. Hence, our proposal aims to best integrate laptops into an already sustainable and successful teaching program. There are several approaches we wish to take to ensure the laptops have a long lasting impact on the children and the community.
First, over the ten weeks, we will continually meet with the teachers at the school in order to develop ways to incorporate the computers into their lesson plans and curriculums. This curriculum can be repeated and improved year after year.
Second, since the school is also open to adults, we will be holding workshops teaching basic computer skills and repairs specific to the XO laptops. We hope to establish a cadre of active teachers and adults in the community to help maintain the program. Moreover, our local partner, the Fred Outa Foundation, has promised to provide personnel and the best teachers to continue the project after our stay.
Our team is currently in the process of applying for grants to provide for additional funding in order to make the program sustainable for following years. The funds will be used to purchase additional XOs as well as to provide basic supplies. Because each student is only given one pencil and notebook that is supposed to last them an entire semester, we will also bring them writing utensils and paper. We are currently working on finding a paper supplier that would be able to ship to the school after we have left.
