G1G1

Because of the continual support we've received from OLPC, we thought it would be appropriate to advertise their upcoming Give 1 Get 1 program. See Carolyn Taylor's flyer we'll be circulating throughout our networks to learn how you can get involved...

XO Camp Report - 26 -29 September 2008

XO Camp Report - 26 -29 September 2008
by Herman Mamasela, Kelebogile Seitisho, Kabelo Koma and Daniel Senoge

We are happy to report that we managed to host the XO camp that was held at the KYP centre. The camp was very productive because all the expectations and objectives of the camp were met.

- On day 1 of the camp we started with an introductory session, an orientation of our camp where we showed our visitors, the relevant places that they needed to know such as toilets, sleeping rooms etc...

- We asked the learners the things that they wanted to get from the camp and of our expectations as the organizers.

- We laid down ground rules on a chart together as a group, and we are happy to report that all of us in the camp managed to adhere to our ground rules.

- The commitment of the participants was amazing and that made all our sessions to run smoothly.

Successes
- The Limpopo students left the camp understanding all the XO activities in their entirety.

- We taught them from the write activity to the video chat and it was amazing to see how fast the students were in learning the browse activity and the internet.

- After the camp every person involved in the camp was able to differentiate between e-mail and internet. The students can now send, reply and forward e-mails.

- Our visitors can create e-mail addresses and this will help the rest of the schools students to open e-mail addresses and this will help with the social network that we want to create with all the areas that received XO’s.

- The students at KYP exchanged email addresses with our visitors and a pen-pal club has been established.

- On the day of departure KYP took the visitors on a tour around Soweto and the educators were excited about the history that lies in our surroundings and our Limpopo friends were also welcomed by Antoinette Sithole (Hector Petersons’ sister) at the Hector Pierterson Museum in Soweto.

Challenges
As the organizers we feel that we could have done more things if we had enough time e.g. one full week.

Future
Since this was our first camp, we would love to participate in other camps that may happen in South Africa because we feel this will give us more experience on our organisational and facilitation skills.

Gratitude’s
We take this opportunity to thank KYP management team, Paul Commons, Hannah and Julia Weber The Thusanang trust , and the South Africa exchange from Nobles for giving us this opportunity to organise this camp. Most importantly we thank the Pastoral Crèche for allowing us to run our camp at their premises. We also thank KYP members who participated on our camp their extra help and the preparation of the food. We pride ourselves for being able to host the camp and we thank Nicholas Negroponte for considering under privileged children in the technology world.