OLPCorps UniversityofWashington Kenya
Takaungu Team, University of Washington & The New School
Junior Community Health Worker Program at Vutakaka Junior School, Takaungu, Kenya
Takaungu Team Members
| Name | Affiliation | |
|---|---|---|
| Breona Gutschmidt | University of Washington, Educational Communication and Technology, '11 | breona@pendiva.com |
| Jen Hill | International Affairs, The New School, '09, U.S. Board President, East African Center | jhill@eastafricancenter.org |
| Cecilia Jezek | University of Washington, Library and Information Science, '09 | tcjezek@u.washington.edu |
| Emma Nierman | University of Washington, Social Work, '11, Director of Education Programs, East African Center | enierman@eastafricancenter.org |
Proposal
The Takaungu Team will use the XO laptops, funding and training to launch a Junior Community Health Worker program at the Vutakaka Junior School in rural Kenya, in conjunction with our NGO partner the East African Center for Women and Children (EAC). The Junior CHW program will not only serve the students but will also provide a model and training ground that the Vutakaka teachers will be able to use as a springboard to continue programs of their own creation in the future. The students, from standards 3-5, will become agents of change in their community as children and throughout their lives.
The Vutakaka Junior School, located in remote Takaungu, was established by the EAC as part of a community center that also includes a nursery school, a health clinic, a farmer field school and adult education programs.
Unlike surrounding schools that typically have 200 students in one classroom, the Vutakaka Junior School has small class sizes of 30 that are ideal for piloting laptop saturation. Classes are conducted primarily in English. The highly-engaged teachers have requested more opportunities for science and technology education, as well as more training and curricula that takes their teaching to the next level and that challenges their students with out-of-the-box thinking about real-world issues. The teachers have successfully led HIV/AIDS education and Red Hand projects, and have asked for more programs like these.
The Junior CHW program will utilize classroom-based and field-based activities and will be integrated into the students' school day. While there is a school break for the month of August, most students choose to attend optional classes. Students will work together in teams, paired with an adult community health worker. Each group will select a health topic that affects the community for further inquiry, and will use the XOs to research their topics via the Internet. Working with their own laptops, the students will collaboratively develop a multi-media presentation. Students might choose to write a song using TamTam Edit, perform a skit and record it on video, combine audio and visual elements in Scratch, create a slide show with graphics, charts or photos or model the spread of disease using Etoys, for example. A wiki will be used to share what they've learned, and ultimately student groups will go out into the community to use their presentations as a means for generating discussion. Finally, the students will return to the classroom with questions for further study, feedback on the experience, and data to track and chart. The emphasis will be on student discovery—of information, tools, technology, means of expression and communication, ways to work together, the XO's capabilities and their own capabilities.
Funding will primarily be used to build a secure, wired classroom, bring electricity to the school, purchase additional hardware, and pay for Internet, as well as defray some salary costs for a technology lead teacher and fund travel between Takaungu to Kigali for the team and two teachers. The EAC will be a strong partner in funding and continuing to support the project, and our team has already engaged in further fundraising.
The Takaungu Team has the field experience to successfully deploy this project. We have a high level of technical ability and educational expertise and are fully capable of setting up the school server and XOs. We speak English and basic Swahili. Two or more of our team members will be able to attend the training in Kigali and stay in Takaungu for ten weeks or longer. With one G1:G1 XO accessible to the team already, we are familiar with the hardware, software and curriculum. The Takaungu Team has existing relationships with the EAC and the community in Takaungu, relationships in which the community leads the way.
Dedicated to creating a sustainable and locally driven program, the Takaungu Team will continue to support XO integration at the Vutakaka Junior School providing ongoing curricular planning and technical support (including XO end-of-life planning) as requested. Once we return to the U.S., the EAC has agreed to pay for their local on-call tech support person to provided tech support that the students and teachers might need that cannot be addressed by us remotely. We will also continue to work with the EAC to raise funds to maintain the program and purchase laptops for future classes.