1st week...
Group left for Kruger park to relax which should give me and Neo an opportunity to work on a few additional issues which need to be addressed (upcoming ceremony on Thursday, contracts, meeting community leaders, weekend workshop w/ the students, catching up on emails, etc, etc, etc). This project is a logistical nightmare. Needless to say, I'm learning more and more each day. If I ever summon the strength to do this again, it would certainly run much much smoother. Starting Monday we'll have the teachers resume classes as they normally would but trying to integrate the XOs into their curriculum when able to. It should be interesting to see where the teachers are compared to the students.
Additional XOs...
Thanks to Larry Weber for providing an additional 15 XO laptops to our school communities. You and your family are amazing for putting us in touch with Neo, Thulani and the Kliptown students. God bless you. We couldn't have done it without them. The laptops will be put to good use in the coming months. We're hoping that each active teacher will now be able to have an XO.
After School Program...
Tomorrow the Soweto students and I will be hosting a weekend activity at the school for anyone in the Katane school area interested in learning how to operate the XOs. This should give us a clear indication on how keen the students and community are for this project. The idea came from the Kliptown group, particularly Thulani who has played an integral part in pulling this deployment together. We're hoping this will give us a chance to talk to the parents about the project, ownership, etc.
Redesigning ownership...
Due to a number of factors, ownership of the XOs has caused many headaches the past few days. How does one try and give a sense of ownership to a child without compromising the benefit these XOs provide for other students in the school? We can't simply give the laptops to the children since 2/3 schools lack electricity. What happens when one child's laptop is taken by an older sibling or parent? But then we face ownership at the school. Giving the school ownership presents problems, or at least we've noticed this past week at one school in particular. Some teachers are more concerned about their laptop, not the possible benefits it could provide to their learners. Not many people understand this is one laptop per child, not teacher. We're now writing up contracts in which teachers, parents and students all agree that ownership still belongs to One Here...One There. The program will be re-evaluated this December on holiday. If the schools are using them to their full potential, we'll re-distribute and go at this again. On the other hand, if one of the schools is not using them, we have the right to distribute the XOs to either of the schools that do take advantage of them. We're noticing that 1 school is seeing this more as an image issue, not an educational opportunity. We don't want schools to get the idea that they're the "school with the laptops". We're now running up against time constraints since we need to return to university. One of my tasks is to find someone who is capable of monitoring the program after we leave. I have faith in 2 of the schools...we'll see about the 3rd. They all have great potential but leadership in the administration is essential. Nobody said this would be easy though.
Upcoming Ceremony...
The teachers at Mmaweshi primary school have already designed the program for Thursday's event. Fortunately we have some contacts here which should bring a high level actor in government to come speak as the Keynote address. The only issue is trying to bring all 3 schools, including teachers, students and parents, to one central location to have the event. Mmaweshi teachers have taken an active role in pursuing publicity for the event. Yesterday they had Violet Mamabolo interview me live on the air. And this coming Thursday they've scheduled some people from local newspapers to participate in the ceremony. So now we're managing on putting all this together. I've never been too keen on these sorts of things but they're all certainly excited about it so I guess I'll just go with it....
Connecting Kliptown to Haenertsburg...
Thulani, Neo and I are organizing an opportunity for those students who have excelled in our schools to visit Johannesburg during September holiday. Since most students have little to do during break, these students will get an opportunity to see Joburg for the first time and meet similar students who are in the same program. We're hoping this networking opportunity will allow for more learning for everyone. Should be interesting.
Technical aspects...
Server and internet is up and running at Katane. I sent out an email to the Weber family on the XOs which is always appropriate. The server's cage has been installed at Mmaweshi. Generators are up and running now. Unfortunately, we're going to have to delay installing internet at Driehoek until they actually have a school. The government has put in temp. buildings until their brick building is constructed. It's put a kink in our plan. Driehoek students had gone to Katane until a child drowned trying to cross a river getting to school. For that reason, we have Driehoek.
Long term support...
Joy from Stanford Lake College is incredible for offering free technical support after we leave. Thank you, Joy. You're amazing for helping. We're now trying to find some volunteers and/or some community leaders willing to lead the after school program at Katane. We'll see how the search goes. Neo is meeting a friend who runs the IT dept in Joburg. I guess they have some mandatory service requirement in their curriculum. Hopefully he'll be able to put us in touch with students from this area. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Birthday Celebration and Racism...
The other night we went out for Joey's 22nd birthday at the local pizza bar. Despite being harrassed the 1st time I went by 1 self-reightous local w/ a PhD (yes, he made sure we knew he had a PhD) who basically told me to get out of his country (he was British and came here when he was 21...hypocritical, no?), the rest of the crowd was very welcoming, particularly the owner. For that reason, we decided to take Joey and the group there to celebrate. So we're all drinking, eating, and playing pool when Sippo, one of the Kliptown students, decides to take part in the pool game. Unfortunately for him, one of the more ignorant, white locals decides to tell him he's now "allowed" to play. Well, he asked for his $20 to play on account of his colour. Because of that, Sippo and Thulani decided to sing a birthday song while gumboot dancing. In a town like this, or so I'm noticing, they would have never done something like that unless in an international crowd like we were. Needless to say, I'm glad Sippo had an opportunity to tell him off in a more appropriate manner. Unfortunately, Sippo didn't tell me of the incident until we returned. We won't be supporting that business ever again.
Everywhere I go, whether it's in America, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, South Africa or wherever, it's all the same. We're so insecure that we need to feel powerful in any manner possible. So we talk down upon and discriminate against our neighbors and brothers on account of some insignificant and unjustified reason (e.g. colour of skin). And that's 1 small reason why I'm still doing this project. For the first time in history we're allowing those with no voice an opportunity to express themselves and make themselves heard via multimedia and the internet. Maybe I'm just optimistic, but I'm hoping that by connecting people of different cultures then maybe our children will wake up and realize there's not much different between our neighbors around the world. Maybe communication and dialogue is our solution to some of the more "challenging" issues we face, like racism. Ha, who would have thought it would be so difficult to treat someone with love and respect? Hmm...I wonder if a PhD teaches you that?
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