OLPCorps MtHolyoke Tanzania

OLPCorps_MtHolyoke_Tanzania

Team Composition

• Hilda Barasa; Freshman International Relations, Economics and Urban Sociology who has previously gone to Tanzania for a month with the Kilimanjaro Initiative - An NGO formed to address the problems of youth in the urban areas of East Africa by providing young people with opportunities that will enable them to take on a constructive role in their communities.
• Caroline Waweru;Junior Economics and Complex Organizations with a focus on economic development in Africa. She has previously worked with Hope Babies Home in Kenya which caters for abandoned babies and the Dagoretti Childrens Home, also in Kenya.

Our Proposal

OLPCorps: Mount Holyoke College _Tanzania_Barasa

Recognizing that equitable development in Tanzania is undermined by prevalent poverty, the HIV/AIDS pandemic and lack of opportunities to advance quality education for all children, we are teaming up with the UN Habitat Safer Cities Office in Tanzania with the support of the Prime Minister’s office to work with street children and orphans in an orphanage/children’s home in Dar es Salaam receiving children of the ages 4-16 for a duration of 9 weeks from June 22nd to August 22nd.. These children are taken through the primary and secondary education system and at the age of 18 are re-integrated into society by re-uniting them with their families and facilitating self-employment through impartation of skills. Others continue with higher education.

Overall objective: To enhance sustainable development in this area by disseminating and imparting technological know-how on a diverse group of cognitive and abstract thinking children gaining various study skills at a crucial stage in life.

Our work and its impact on children:

The children will be in school the months of June and July and we will be working with the orphanage directors to schedule time slots preferably in the morning for the younger kids to work with them in making their education practical and not just theoretical. For the older kids who will be going to schools outside the home, we know they get off around three tentatively and so we would work on a two hour schedule with them after school, reviewing and incorporating what they have been taught in school that day with the features of the XO laptop and how they can merge together. We will also be speaking and using some of the laptops at their school on certain days.

We will initially meet with some of the teachers at the home to acquaint them with the laptops as we will need assistance in working on an individual basis with the children. We will then hold sessions with the all the children to teach them the basics of the XO laptops, how to open it, the basic features of the laptops and learning what appeals to them.

Due to the range in years, we intend to work with two different groups afterwards:

• 6-8 yrs: Since this group is defined by concrete thinking and are generally more interested in doing something as opposed to the outcome of it, we would spend time using scratch to story-tell, Etoys, record and turtle art but also encourage them to try out different features or build on their interests.
• 9-12: This is the group that is learning to think abstractly and tends to become immersed in subjects that are of interest to them and want to find their own solutions. We will introduce to them applications such as Write where they can tell their own stories, calculate, chat to enhance collaborative work between them. Most important of all, we will work at making them at ease with Browse which is critical because they are at the phase where they are daring to dream about their futures and these dreams are shaped by their circumstances and environment. This is the group that we want to target by showing them that their dreams are possible and that they can be agents of change by use of technology and virtual resources.

The month of August will be a chance to bring together all the children to work on various activities and to foster the notion of ownership of the laptops. We want to use this month to dare them to try different things and test their limits. Above all we want to create a mentorship program at this point that will result in a multiplier effect i.e. gets the older kids to work with the younger kids.

Continuity and Sustainability: The UN Habitat Safer Cities Program has assigned Ms Martha Mkupasi and Ms Anna Mtani to work in collaboration with us during our time in Tanzania and will co-ordinate and oversee the project after we leave towards the end of August. This team will also handle the storage of laptops and equipment once we get to Tanzania in the duration of the project.

Additional Funding: If need be additional funding will be outsourced from the Mount Holyoke College through the Inclusiveness Initiative Fund as well as fundraising activities carried out through the Office of School Programs. Communication: Both Caroline and myself speak fluent Swahili which is the national language of the country.