Projects/KenyaSmallSolutions HOC KeongoSchool

Introduction SmallSolutions_HOC_KeongoSchool

Shipping Address:

Hands for Charity

Off Thika Road

Along Kasarani Mwiki Road at Seasons Stage

Mark Bill Koech c/o Theresa Okello

(254) -734-771-385

Number of You Request to Borrow: 10

Loan Length—How Many Months: January to April 2010

Keongo Kericho Classroom

Project Members

Mark Koech (Team Leader)

Email: billiago@gmail.com

Education: Student, United States International University, B.Sc, Information Systems and Technology

A-level Certificate, 2006

O-level Certificate, 2004

Sandra Thaxter (Small Solutions)

Elias Kimaiga Moregi

Education: KCA University BCOM and CPA Accounts Clerk Nyakach Girls’ High School Profession: Teacher, Matongo Mixed Secondary School

Stephen Sawa

Education:

Diploma, Primary School Science

Certificate in Social work

Profession: Head Master, St. Aloys Academy

Maruti J. Soita

Education: Masters Degree, Education, Kenyatta University

Bachelors Degree, Education, University of Nairobi

Profession: Teacher, Chejamisi Girls’ High School

Elizabeth Ogutu

Education: Student, United States International University, BA Accounting

Objectives

We hope to make learning of Mathematics easier and more interesting by using the activities the XO laptop has to inspire interest and raise the average percentage mark of all the children by 20% by the end of the three months.

Plan of Action

Hands of Charity wants to step in and begin a process of bringing change one small step at a time and begin reversing the erosion and poor performers that these problems have brought about over time. We aim to do this by targeting Primary School children (between 10 and 15 years) using the XO laptop, a highly flexible and useful machine developed for use among children of this age.

Six hundred children will benefit from our programs in two districts in Kenya, Kericho and Bungoma, which will run for 12 weeks, from 11th January 2010 to 2nd April 2010. The program will be implemented on the ground by six volunteers, divided into two groups each in one district, recruited by the organization.

Needs

With an ever reducing number of children who finish Primary School and even smaller who finish Secondary School at the standard age of 18, children in schools clearly lack direction in and purpose for school. In the target school in Kericho district, Keongo Primary School, nearly 250 children that join primary school at the age of 6 to 8, yet only an average of 158 successfully navigate through and graduate from the 8 year course. This high drop out rate is caused by lack of money, children getting orphaned by HIV/AIDS and are therefore taken in by relatives as casual labourers, lack of interest in school and perennial poor performance and constant castigation by teachers drives these children into finding school to be torture forced upon them by their parents. At some point these children decide to drop out and start looking for ways to earn a living, or simply drop out and get drawn into negative activities like drug abuse and sex.

Some of these children do indeed finish Primary School and progress to Secondary School. Here, the story of lack of motivation, lack of learning material and the extremely theoretical teaching methods continues. Unfortunately for Kenya, the free Primary and Secondary education introduced a few years back has left most schools in dire lack of resources due to the overwhelmingly large number of children who are admitted into the schools every year.

Methods

The project shall begin on the 10th of January 2010. The two teams, that is the Kericho Team and the Bungoma Team shall start teaching at the same time in their respective schools in order to maximise available computers, which are quite few in number. Each respective team will leave Nairobi for Kericho and Bungoma, 300 km and 450 km respectively, on the 8th of January 2010. They will use the two days to settle and prepare for the classes starting the following Monday.

Measuring Outcomes

The schools have monthly Continuous Assessment Tests (CATs) that are used to examine the progress made by their pupils. The supervising teacher will closely monitor the children’s results and use them to access the progress made by the children in Mathematics, English and HIV/AIDS awareness. The CATs given to the children test the children’s knowledge in all these fields. At the end of the three months, the pupils will also be given special tests prepared by the HOC teams to test their progress in spelling, pronunciation and speech in English and computer proficiency.

A full report will be prepared at the end of the three month period, detailing the progress on a weekly basis. A summarised version of this will then be published on the HOC website (under construction) and made available for all to read.

TimeFrame

January 10 - April 2010

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

Month 4 Measuring Outcomes

Staffing and Resources

The field teams will be led by the Team Leaders, who are trained teachers charged with supervisory roles. The Kericho team will be led by Mark Bill Koech of Hands of Charity.

Contact the team leader, Mark Bill Koech for more information. billmark@ymail.com or billiago@gmail.com

Curriculum

The XOs also have activities like Pippy and Turtle Art that will be used to test if basic Mathematical concepts like addition, multiplication, subtraction and division, as well as angles, fractions, ratios, percentage and basic algebra have been understood. What the children score in these tests will be recorded and the weekly data represented by a line graph to show the progress they have made. This will also be done in groups to help breed a culture of collective success and to utilise the few laptops available.

Week 1 Introduction to XO Introduction to XO Week 2 Operations (T(addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

Sustainability

progress reports on all the activities of the project will be posted on the HOC website.

We hope to attract more funding to facilitate the next three month phase of the project (May, June and July). In the process, we will look for funding to set up a computer college for the adult community in the areas. This will be for the post primary and secondary school level people who are willing to learn computer. We are aware that the importance of Computer literacy is being realised by the community realised with the help of schools and organisations like ours, so we hope to take advantage of this by bringing a college to the people. They will pay a small fee to learn a few packages and we will then use the money we get from this to fund part of the subsequent phases of the project.