OLPCorps UTSA Baylor Kenya

Proposal

OLPC Corps: UTSA and Baylor - Kenyan Project

Introduction:

We are a team of students from Baylor and the University of Texas at San Antonio who share a common passion about the life conditions of underprivileged children in Africa. The UTSA students had been working with the Invisible Children organization http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php and had heard about a group of students from Baylor who had gone on short missions to Kenya through a program cosponsored by their school and a church called UBC http://www.ubcwaco.org/2007/Default.aspx in Waco, Texas.

Our team consists of five members Sophia Worth, UTSA – Psychology; Briana Walters, UTSA – Communications; Leila Benitez, UTSA – Biology; Amanda Hanson, Baylor – Pre-Law, and Jenne Blackburn, Baylor - Marketing.

Objectives:

1) Establish an innovative and collaborative learning model for the children and teachers with a fundamental emphasis on a child to child teaching methodology.

2) Improve basic reasoning, writing, and reading skills through projects that drive passion such as local fable re-creation and genealogy research.

3) Fundamental mastery of 21st century technology that leverages the intelligence of these young minds.

Location:

The host community that we are targeting for our OLPC project is an orphanage called Shelter Children Rehabilitation Centre in Ngong, Kenya. http://www.shelterchildrenkenya.org/Default.aspx This orphanage shelters 130 children from infancy to age 21.

Sustainability:

Mary Muiruri, Director of the shelter plus her staff of 5 will sustain the OLPC project once we leave. Our NGO sponsors include UBC and the SCRC. They will be providing formal letters of support and have shown great eagerness to fully support this project.

Plan Summary:

Our goal is to deploy an XO to each child from age 5 – 15. The orphanage is building a private school that will educate most of the primary school children, however currently all are attending various public schools. With this in mind we are looking to the orphanage to be the primary infrastructure and setting in which the XOs are deployed and managed. There will not be a problem with deploying the laptops to the kids during June through August because they live at the orphanage.

We will consult with local stakeholders to arrange for children to take their XOs to their public schools. We will encourage an approach where the schools set aside time during the day where the children with the XOs can hold informal “classes” and teach other students about their new technology. These children are growing up with somewhat of a social handicap because they do not have parents and are potentially stigmatized. We think that getting XO’s into their possession will even the playing field a bit because these children do not get the same quality one-on-one time that their peers with parents do. Owning an XO will give them a way to connect with the world, create friendships, explore vast opportunities and educate themselves.

Learning Task Examples:

1) Develop Literary Skills: Kids will research local Kenyan Fables (3 or 4), make a mini-book with text and pictures obtained from the internet, make artwork with “paint” programs, read and present the book to other kids.

2) Phase II - Kids will write their own Fable, make artwork and present.

3) Genealogy – If appropriate and on a case by case basis, ancestral history research projects will be encouraged. Oral and written stories will be recorded and embedded on personal web pages and on a common school website. This will develop the children’s technical skills while participating in an activity that generates passion.

Logistics – Key Components:

We have carefully considered many of the logistical details and are prepared to elaborate on our plans should our proposal be chosen to move forward. In respect of your time we have condensed what we believe to be the major components:

1) Briefings, planning and buy-in from local schools and community

2) Training of key stakeholders and children

3) Deployment of XOs, Server, Network Infrastructure

4) Develop and implement program and mini-curriculum for child to child teaching

Because we are introducing XO’s to a sub-group within the schools we recognize that there will be potential conflict. A thorough understanding of local customs and traditions will be necessary prior to any engagement. Two of our team members are prepared to go to the 2 week orientation that OLPC administers and all members will read the book called Culture and Customs of Kenya by Neal Sobania http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Customs-Kenya-Africa/dp/0313314861

In addition, one of our team members has been on two prior trips to this orphanage and surrounding region and has established a significant awareness campaign at Baylor University. Another team member has been to the orphanage on one prior trip.

We believe that by allowing the school teachers to lead the effort in developing a setting, such as a one hour class period, the likelihood for success will improve. Furthermore allowing teachers to control the curriculum and be the guide for the students who own the XOs, will ensure the success of the program.

Setting up the server, digital libraries, networking software, management, security, internet connections and all other aspects of a 100 client implementation can be quite complex for a few college students to design and implement. We understand that many of these issues have been worked through by prior implementation teams and we plan to leverage as much of that knowledge as possible.

Budget:

Total budget includes a $10,000 grant from OLPC and $12,000 in student fundraising for a total of $22,000. Please note that 1 student will be supporting the project from Texas, 2 students have committed 2-3 Weeks and the remaining 2 have committed to 10 weeks in-country.

Item #	Description	Unit Cost	Total Cost	Comment
1	Airfare	2500	5000	Texas / Kigali
2	Airfare	2500	5000	Texas / Nairobi
3	Transportation	500	1000	Kigali / Nairobi
4	Room / Board	1400	2800	2 Student X 10 weeks
5	Room / Board	420	840	2 Students X 3 weeks
6	Backup Server	700	700
7	Power Strips / Misc. Hardware	300	300
8	Supplies	300	300
9	XO Transport	400	400
10	Stipends	400	400	Children / Stakeholders
Total	Total			16740
Reserve	Reserve			5260