Projects/MaasaiConnection

Objectives

Our project objective is to create equality for the Maasai in Kenya. Our pillars for reaching equality are education, communication and economic access.

Education goals:

  • Provide online tutoring to rural Maasai students to enable them to pass the Kenya Certification of Primary Education (KCPE) test and thus achieve entrance into secondary school.
  • Provide a digital library to rural Maasai students
  • Teach computer skills to rural Maasai students

Communication:

  • To establish satellite internet to a community center, built by the Maasai community  in rural Maasailand, near the town of Talek
  • To establish internet phone service to the center and several rural schools
  • To enable webcam communication for penpal programs between rural Maasailand and other areas
  • Website documentation of community education in Maasailand

Economic Access:

  • Establish internet for the use of local cooperatives, especially women’s beading micro enterprise, in order to access the global market directly
  • Set up systems for shipping beads to buyers outside of Maasailand
  • Enable communities to access microloans via the internet

Timeline

Present – June 19th: We are preparing the project and acquiring the resources needed to be successful. We are communicating with the Maasai community leadership to insure that this project is congruent with their aspirations.

June 19th – August 9th: We will be in Maasailand working directly with the communities implementing the step-by-step plan outlined in section four.

August 9th – Future: We will stay in touch remotely via phone and Internet communication. There will be yearly student trips back to the communities and our college is involved on an on-going basis with the education center.

Needs

The schools we work with have very little educational materials making the availability of the laptops an invaluable resource.

The KCPE test is required to graduate to the equivalent of the 8th grade and move on to secondary school. Students get one opportunity to pass and if they fail they cannot proceed with their education. Less than 1% of Maasai have ever passed the test because they do not have the resources—schools have few books, no electricity for studying after dark, and students have little access to much of the cultural backdrop upon which the test is based. The KCPE exam questions include reference to urban realities completely beyond the experience of rural students.

Basic typing skills and computer usage will give the Maasai youth that we work with more employment opportunities. With a higher number of employed Maasai community members, funding for rural schools will dramatically increase. Education is the greatest possible recourse for all of these people and with it they have more opportunities for future. With the communities’ current situation educational recourses are limited. They have only a few books and pamphlets and those are locked away behind a wire cage so that they are not destroyed by over usage. The XO laptops can provide the Maasai people with Internet resources, digital books, educational games and other educational tools that will advance them far past their current situation. These communities need these laptops so that they will no longer be educationally handicapped - not by their mental ability or desire to learn, but simply by their lack of modern resources.

This project will further the OLPC mission by creating a valuable connection to a successful application of the program. Outside of the OLPC community, access to XO laptops will bring cross-cultural communication between western school children and the Maasai communities. The laptops are needed for the project because their durability and design will function perfectly in the rural area where the Maasai live.

We work with numerous students and schools that need more solid educational resources. These computers will be serving more than 540 students in two different locations. We feel that asking for 540 XO laptops would be asking for too much. Therefore, we hope to have one laptop for every ten students.

Project URL: MaasaiConnection.org