OLPCorps MIT Mauritania Bababe

University: MIT

Team: Mary Wang, Owen Derby, Janet Li, Madeline Mirzoeff

NGO: Peace Corps

Local Contact: Zach Swank, Environmental Educator

Deployment Location: Bababé, Mauritania

Deployment Date: June 20th-August 29th, 2009

Our goal is to give children the tools needed to explore the world and learn independently of the rote memorization they are accustomed to. We want to empower them with the ability to teach others and share their ideas.

We are working with the Peace Corps [1] and volunteer Zach Swank on this initiative. Mr. Swank is an environmental educator in Bababe who will work with us throughout the 10 weeks and provide facilities to store and charge the laptops.

Our deployment will be set up as a summer program using Maison de Jeunes, a youth center established by the Ministry of Culture, as our school. We will choose a diverse group of 5th and 6th graders to work with. In a male dominated education system, we will make sure that we provide equal opportunities to both genders.

The school system in Mauritania is weak, due largely to the poverty of the country and thus lack of student resources. Giving 100 elementary school children XO’s will have irreversible effects on how they learn. It will allow them to utilize the opportunities that come with innovative technology notably, the Internet. The ability to access this infinite information database will give students the resources and desire to learn on a global scale. We will also use the XO's as learning tools in the classrooms, teaching the children how to use the laptops to gain more understanding about each other and their own environment.

The children will learn how to use the XOs through interactive, multi-player games. They will be encouraged to explore the features of the laptops themselves. Then, they will design projects that they will work on in teams. Potentially, they will collaborate with children participating in our sister deployments in Kaedi, Tdjikja, Kiffa and Kankossa. Using the XOs, they will record what they observe, share the designs and ideas they come up with, analyze the information they find on the web, and present the results to their peers and parents. We will also work with Zach to create a project to teach children about the environment. We hope that this will have a positive effect on the community and foster collaboration.

Working with local educational providers and Peace Corps volunteers, we will design lesson plans for schools to incorporate the XOs. Keeping their 5th grade public school curriculum in mind, we will show the children how to take what they have learned and apply it in a new and interesting way.

The local spoken languages in Bababe are Pulaar, a language used in Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia, and western Mali; Hassniya, a dialect of Arabic that is understood by most children because they must learn the Koran at a young age; and French. The children also learn English in school, but at the age of 6-12, they probably only know the basics. For this reason, we will most likely teach the children in French, although we will obviously still use English in English language classes.

Two of our team members can speak some French and we will work with Peace Corps volunteers to make sure that we teach the students most effectively. Some of these volunteers are mentors at the Girls Mentoring Center in Bogue who speak any mixture of English, French, Hassniya, Arabic, and Pulaar. We will familiarize them with our curriculum and goals each day before we meet the students, to make sure that the children receive the most accurate instructions.

In terms of sustainability, the Peace Corps has been involved in Bababe for 20 years now and is making no plans to leave. The volunteers we train on the XOs will pass their skills to new volunteers, continuing our program long after we leave. Our local contact Zach Swank will help integrate the XOs into the school system when the school year starts. We will record the work we do in Bababe as reference for future deployments. If successful, this project will serve as a pilot for future Peace Corps programs internationally.

We will also encourage the children to keep in contact with our team and keep us updated on their lives and set up a pen pal exchange between Bababe students and the students involved in the Cambridge, MA deployment near MIT. This would facilitate cultural awareness and allow Mauritanian students to practice their English. We would look further into this in the weeks leading up to June 8.

Our team is also in the process of establishing an official student organization at MIT dedicated to overseeing our program, logistically, financially, and personally. By becoming an official club, we will be able to apply to the MIT Undergraduate Association Finance Board for funding; this board receives around $200k every year to give to student groups. In addition, we will be able to fundraise on-campus by holding university-wide events and off-campus by soliciting alumni and corporations for sponsorships. The money we raise will provide continuing financial support to maintain internet connectivity, power, server connections, and repairs and eventual replacement of the laptops. In addition, forming an MIT group will further student interest in our program and in OLPC in general. This would provide support and maintenance for existing programs and also raise the necessary funds to send new OLPC teams to Africa every summer.