OLPCorps Cornell Mauritania

Mission Statement

We are a group of socially conscious, technically inclined students at Cornell University who wish to improve education in Africa. We believe that OLPC and its constructionist, hands-on learning method is the best way to do this.
We are going to use technology for the rest of our lives in whatever profession we choose. Acknowledging this, it is necessary to share a part of what we have been given. All children can succeed if given the right tools. We need to go out and share the technology that has enabled us to learn.
Improving literacy is the best application of this technology.

Who we are

Name	Major	Responsibility
Eli Luxenberg	Information Science '10	Project Lead
James Elkins	Information Science '11	Logistics Lead
Seth Luxenberg	Policy Analysis and Management '08	Community Lead
Alan Garcia	Information Science '09	Technology Lead
Nora Callinan	Biological Sciences '09	Fundraising Lead
Jawwad Asghar	Mechanical Engineering '11	Pedagogical Lead
Billy Podlaski	Biological Sciences '11	Pedagogical Lead
Charles Curwen	Information Science '12	University Liason

When

Summer 2009 - June 20th-August 20th

Where

Tdjikja, Mauritania

<googlemap version="0.9" lat="18.559205" lon="-11.431832" zoom="15"> 18.558205, -11.426863 Tidjikdja, Tagant Location of the Girls Mentoring Center </googlemap>

750 Word Formal Proposal

Mauritania is transitioning from an ancient nomadic society to the modern global community. Most parts of the country do not have paved roads, yet television is readily available to expose community members to global culture. Still, the overall literacy rate in Mauritania is only 51.2%, compared to 99% in developed countries; for women and girls the rate is even lower. According to UNESCO(http://www.unesco.org/education/GMR2006/summary_eng.pdf), high literacy rates are "key to enhancing human capabilities, with wide-ranging benefits including critical thinking, ..., children's education, ... and active citizenship." The goal of Cornell OLPC is to teach computer skills to improve the literacy rates of young children in underserved and less priviledged poplations, thereby improving their educational opportunities.

Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), development workers of the United States government, have been serving communities in Mauritania since 1967. President Clinton’s Education for Development and Democracy Initiative in 2000 allowed Peace Corps to open Girls’ Mentoring Centers (GMCs) to support girls’ education. PCVs work with local counterparts to teach children through the Mauritanian public schools and the GMCs.

The city of Tidjikja, in the Tagant region, is one of the poorer, more isolated areas of Mauritania. PCVs work in the community at a primary school (Ecole 1) and the Tidjikja GMC. Teachers at public schools are rotated annually as a government policy, which is a hindrance to motivation and investment into long term goals of school programs. Additionally, corruption and lack of transparency with the local government can be a large impediment to development work and distribution of materials. By partnering with the GMC as well as the local school, we can ensure longer range sustainability and deter theft of the laptops.

In the Mauritanian educational system, subjects are taught in Arabic or French, rather than the local language. If a student does not have a firm grasp in either language, his/her performance suffers. To compound the problem further, the Arabic presents a diglossic situation; Fusha, Modern Standard Arabic, is the formal written and spoken language, which shares roots with the local dialect, Hassaniya, and can be confusing for students. This impedes language instruction because children cannot connect the words on the page to the words that they are speaking. In Salim Abu-Rabia's paper, Effects of exposure to literary Arabic on reading comprehension in a diglossic situation (2000), he recommends that "teachers at all levels use literary Arabic as the language of instruction" because of the performance boost in reading comprehension.

The XO laptop can engage those students who would be more likely to drop out of school. Using the Speak activity, as well as other language learning activities, the laptops will serve as a tool to solidify their language skills in Arabic, English and French. Pen-pal programs with Arabic language speakers in America are in the works, which will both expose Mauritanian students to different ideas, but also strengthen their weak language skills. Another potential program is a group collaboration project within the Mauritanian deployments, which would engage students from the different deployment sites in order to accomplish a task.

We can accomplish this task with the budget that has been given to us, with additional outside fundraising depending on the size of the team. Unfortunately, since we are based in the US, airfare is quite high, making up over 50% of our budget. Also, Internet at the site we have chosen may not be economically feasible because it may cost as much as $500 a month depending on the plan that we use. In terms of technology, we plan to load Sugar-OpenMSX (reference here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Software_projects#Sugar-openmsx) onto the computer, so that we can utilize the Arabic educational programs that were developed for that platform. In addition, we are trying to partner with Electronic Learning Products, Inc, makers of TUNEin To Reading, to utilize their novel "sing to read" literacy approach when learning Arabic.

In the long term, one of our project leads will be in the area for 1.5 years after the initial deployment team leaves. There is a great demand for computer lessons and people constantly ask PCVs for computer lessons. In addition, the long term goal of the local GMC is to hand off ownership to the community, which it is doing in stages already. Since the Peace Corps has made a commitment to the GMC, sustainability is assured. Cornell OLPC will support the deployment using financial resources available to us at our University.

We look forward to the overcoming challenge that eradicating illiteracy presents, and face it with optimism tempered by realistic expectations. In parting, we are enthused by a story in the OLPC Learning Manual, called "A New Confidence Gained" - "I know how to read, I know how to read... For him it was an unforgettable day ... this is how he started his literacy." The impact on the children will be immediately measurable.