OLPCorps IU South Africa

August 2008 Deployment (Haenertsburg, South Africa)

Indiana University’s chapter of One Here…One There (OHOT), raised funds and purchased 150 XO laptops through OLPC's Give Many Campaign. 100 of these laptops were donated to three participating schools (Mmaweshi Primary School, Katane Primary School, Driehoek Primary School) in the Limpopo province of South Africa. The twelve OHOT students spent three weeks in Haenertsburg working with the schools and teaching the students how to use the laptops. The teachers also began training on how to use the laptops as well as how to integrate them into daily class curriculum. Locally, Thusanang Trust, and more specifically Shelley Milstein, who took on the project, helped with the distribution and much of the set-up that went along with the project. Multiple people from the Kliptown project in Soweto, Johannesburg came to help with the deployment. This included Neo Masilo, the group’s IT specialist, as well as others who were extremely valuable with their knowledge of the workings of the laptops and the local languages.

Today, the project is still going strong with the continued help from Thusanag Trust. Fears that the laptops would not last in this type of environment were dismissed with the fact that only one laptop has broken to this date and not a single one has gone missing or been stolen. The laptops are maintained with generators at the two schools which do not have electricity. There are still problems with access to the Internet, but these problems are continuously being worked on. Kliptown is still involved in the success of this deployment by continuously helping with
IT problems and the maintenance or the laptops. OHOT is still funding and looking for new funds
for the continuation of the project.

Location

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