Category Archives: olpcorps

South Africa: Building grassroots support for access to a modern education

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As noted last week, Jackie Lustig has compiled a report from our South African projects. It draws on background data from the country, and highlights work done there over the past four years.

Starting with a gift of 100 laptops from donors on Boston, and expanding through the interest of a number of OLPCorps projects in 2008, South Africa has expanded its OLPC community to almost 1500 students and teachers today.


OLPC South Africa case study, 2008-2012

(This is an 8MB pdf, so may take a moment to load)

Princeton-Engineers Without Borders collab grows in Ghana

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Separate from the national program being rolled out in Eastern Ghana, Princeton University has a student-run Ghana School Library Initiative which is building a physical library in Ghana stocked with books and OLPCs.    This program started in 2008, and is one of three projects coordinated by the Princeton University chapter of Engineers Without Borders. They shared an update with East Coast OLPCers this Spring, and have been writing about their new milestones this summer, as the library nears completion.

 

After some work earlier this year to repair and update some donated XOs, children have started working with their own laptops at the EP Basic school in Ashaiman, Ghana, where the team is working. They recently completed a week of physical construction and two classes a day with the students.   The classes included working on educational activities with the children in Sugar, “to whet their appetites” to use the XOs more on their own.

eduJAM! starts in Uruguay

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The eduJAM! convocation is going strong, with 2-3 days of Sugar camp and discussion among developers and teachers from across the world. Keep an eye on the ceibalJAM site in the coming days for videos and notes from the event.

You can browse some of the presentations on the edujam2011 slideshare account.

eduJAM!-invitacion

eduJAM! invitacion

OLPCistas in Uruguay this week and next

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Over 20 OLPC and Sugar collaborators are in Uruguay this week, visiting schools, meeting with the Uruguayan communities (ceibalJAM, RAP Ceibal, and the eduJAM event team), and preparing for the eduJAM! summit for Sugar developers and educators across Latin America.

The attendees are using a separate OLPC Uruguay 2011 blog for the week to track their various travels and projects in Uruguay. If you can’t be there yourself, you can follow along (and share your own questions for the group) here.

Havergal Institute girls work with Molweni orphanage in South Africa

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A team of high-school students at the Institute at Havergal is helping to implement an XO program this August at the NOAH’s Ark orphanage (Nurturing Orphans of AIDS for Humanity) in Molweni, South Africa, near Durban.  A group of students taking part in the Havergal South Africa Global Experience Program will take XOs with them, which they are currently learning how to introduce to students.

Using these laptops, they will continue conversations with the NOAH youth all year long.  They have a standing relationship with the orphanage and are being mentored by Mark Battley and a team in Ntugi.

Hope and Josh and Peru

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Hope and Josh, two interns who worked in Peru last year, shared an imaginative and colorful blog of their experiences over the fall, full of photographs of the people and the environment, and short vignettes about teaching. (Sugarcane and Squares, the Repaso).  Their blog is terse, and worth reading all the way through.