PaleXO work with OLPC in the West Bank

The PaleXO volunteer team, whose Arabic language blog we recently added to our sidebar, has been working with the OLPC children in the West Bank for the past year. They’ve run some local installation events and software workshops, and are planning a Scratch Day to encourage kids to make Scratch activities. They often host events at Birzeit University.

They also have the best group OLPC shirts I’ve seen since the rise of the velociraptors… it’s a snapshot of the Sugar desktop with the most common activity icons on it, so they can simply point to the right icon on their shirt when working with students during a workshop. Brilliant. Barbara brought back some lovely photographs from there as well as the ones we posted earlier from Gaza.

New Deployment: Middle East


UNRWA Amari Girls School, an elementary school in the West Bank

OLPC has launched a new deployment in the Middle East in conjunction with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Since the start of its operations in 1950, UNRWA has been a vital provider of basic necessities, health care, and education for Palestine Refugees. Largely funded by the two Give One Get One campaigns and other contributions, OLPC hopes to enrich the education of these children whose lives have been uprooted by warfare. The first wave of 2,700 donated laptops will reach the Gaza and the West Bank in January 2010. Check out the new Middle East page on our website for more information.