OLPCorps Middlebury College Egypt

The Middlebury College team is made up of the following students:

Matthew Groh is a rising senior at Middlebury College pursuing an economics major and Arabic and mathematics minors. He has spent the last 9 months studying abroad in Alexandria, Egypt where he has volunteered time to work on a village development project with Rotaract.

David Hamberlin is also a rising senior at Middlebury college pursuing an Arabic major. He has spent the last 9 months studying abroad in Alexandria, Egypt where he has worked part-time as a translator for the Library of Alexandria.

Monica Abrudan is a graduate student pursuing her Master's degree in social development studies. She has a BA in computer science from Babes Boylai University in Romania.

Ahmed Sabry is a pharmaceutical major at the University of Alexandria, Egypt and a resident of Oreen (the target village).

Brief Summary

The Middlebury team will work with the Nozha New Era Rotaract Club to deploy 100 XO laptops to the children at the elementary school in Oreen. Ahmed is our established connection to the town, and we have already made arrangements to use the elementary school this summer as the classroom facilities. The residents of Oreen are very excited at the prospects of this project, and we feel confident in our ability to not just deploy laptops, but teach how the laptops can open up the world to these children. Communication will be very easy because Ahmed is a native speaker, and Matthew and David are both nearly fluent in Egyptian colloquial. Rotaract has pledged to provide us with at least one additional teacher per day which will provide our project with the infrastructure to implement individualized learning exercises (10 children per class).

Monica will handle all technical aspects of the project, and she will eventually create a website on which we will publish the children's projects.

If any one has any suggestions for us, please feel free to e-mail us at olpcorpsmiddlebury(at)gmail(dot)com

Current Draft of Our Proposal

OLPCorps: Middlebury College Egypt

Our team consists of Matthew Groh and David Hamberlin -- rising seniors from Middlebury College majoring in economics and Arabic, respectively, Monica Abrudan, who has a BA in computer science from Babes Bolyai University in Romania and is currently pursuing a Master's degree in social development studies, and Ahmed Sabry, a pharmaceutical major from the University of Alexandria and a local resident of the target village. We have teamed up with the Rotaract Club of Alexandria and the Middlebury School in Alexandria to establish an OLPCorps project in the village of Oreen in the governorate of Beheira, which is located an hour and a half away from Alexandria by car. The project's target start date will be June 28th, immediately after the school year ends in Oreen, and it will last nine weeks until August 27th.

The four of us will be teaching full-time -- Sunday through Thursday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM at the local elementary school -- along with several members of Rotaract who will rotate teaching to ensure that we always have a minimum staff of five teachers including the four members of our team. The day will be split into two 3-hour blocks with 50 kids per block -- one block will consist of 8 and 9-year-olds and the other will consist of 10 and 11-year-olds. This means that each class would consist of 10 kids, a number that we believe is small enough to give the children individualized attention. Our lessons will revolve around the computers and consist of three subjects: basic computer skills, basic and computer specific English, and world cultures. The first two subjects are obvious choices, and the third is just as important for learning how to use a a key that opens the door to the outside world. Our goal is to reveal how access to computers opens up the world at large, so this class will demonstrate how we can learn about different cultures through websites like Wikipedia, Youtube, and Google. In addition, we will create a blog documenting our daily activities and publish the student's creative works to teach the children that just as the we can learn about the outside world, they can teach the outside world about themselves. We will work closely with the local teachers on our project through shared teaching projects during the summer, and conduct weekly meetings to exchange ideas with the local teachers on how we can integrate computer based learning into the classroom for the following school year.

In order to create an environment for complete cultural immersion, we will live in the village of Oreen in an apartment next door to Ahmed's apartment. One major advantage of our project is communication: Matthew and David are nearly fluent in Egyptian colloquial Arabic, Monica is fluent in English, and Ahmed is a native Egyptian Arabic speaker who is also nearly fluent in English. Many of the residents of Oreen have never met a foreigner before, let alone one they can question about his culture in their own tongue, so the simple contact between us and the village will be an amazing learning experience for all parties involved. Living within the community should assist us in the saturation of the project's goals by spreading an understanding of our project amongst the whole community and therefore, multiplying the positive effects that the laptops will create.

After we complete the 9 week course, Rotaract will continue working with the children of Oreen by overseeing the project through bi-weekly visits to Oreen where Rotaract members will give follow-up computer workshops. In addition, the Middlebury School in Alexandria plans to make Oreen its "sister" village, which would mean students studying abroad from Middlebury would participate in monthly cultural exchanges in Oreen and have the opportunity to join Rotaract for its bi-weekly classes. Furthermore, this is Ahmed's village, so, our team has a personal stake in this project's success. Ahmed returns to his village every two weeks to spend the weekend with his family, and he will personally be around in the long-run to ensure that the summer's success multiplies in the coming years.

The Middlebury School in Alexandria will receive the 250 kg package and provide us with a storage place until the laptops are completely distributed. Monica will assist us in the installation of the server as she has specialized technical experience. The principal of the elementary school, Abdal Mohesen Atallah, has pledged his support to allow us to use the elementary school facilities since they will be empty over the summer. We have contacted several teachers, families, and political figures in Oreen, and everyone is very excited to set up the OLPCorps project.

Through this project we hope that by giving children a window to the outside world at a young age, we can help them grow up with the idea that their culture is one of many and anything is possible if they put their mind to it.