I've decided to go in a bit of a different direction with the blog. I've tried uploading photos, but they take forever because the internet connection is a bit too slow, and my computer usually dies while trying to do it. So, I'm going to make a new post for all the projects that I've been directly involved with (our team is working on many different projects, most of which I'm not really a part of, so I will only go over the rest of these briefly in a later post).
So my first major project I'm on is a computer class that is being taught at a vocational school in the town of Boma Ng'ombe, called the Boma Vocational Training Center. Mama Kitto and her husband started the school several years ago, but Mr. Kitto passed away only a few years after. The school focuses on teaching tailoring skills, but also as part of the curriculum, the students are taught math, English, and computer skills. However, the teacher who taught math, English, and computers has moved to another school way out in the Maasai community, leaving the students only learning tailoring.
That's about where we come in. Many of the people we have talked to, whether just friends in the area or partners, have all expressed a desire and need to learn about computer skills. Since I have just recently received a degree in Information Systems, I figured that I could probably be of service to teach some computer skills. After our assessment of the needs at the Boma VTC, we determined that the students were in great need of having some basic computer skills. The students at the VTC are all mostly girls, ages 16 to 24, and they have literally no idea of how to begin using a computer. When talking to them, some of them didn't even know what was a computer was.
I began looking for a decent curriculum to teach about computers to an audience with little previous experience with computers, and came across an old program from Microsoft for community learning. The curriculum is free for everyone, so I grabbed it and adapted it to an adolescent audience, with no previous knowledge of computers, and who speak Swahili. I've been to the VTC every Tuesday and Thursday now for the past 4 weeks or so teaching computers to these students. It was somewhat of a rough start. It was harder than I thought teaching about computers to students who have absolutely no background, but after getting through the basics and into more practical skills, such as using word processors, things are going pretty smoothly. I feel really good about teaching this very useful skill to a very needy population. Expanding one's education and experience by learning to use a computer, in my opinion, can do more to open up doors than almost any other single skill, because when you know how to use a computer, you can use that computer to learn about almost any other subject you can think of.
Of course, I may be a little biased, but regardless, any education is so important, especially here in a place where opportunities are incredibly limited. These students are learning a skill that will help them improve their lives and the lives of others. Fighting poverty through empowering people with such a skill is exactly one of the reasons why I'm here.
