Oh man this was so much fun today! A few days ago I visited the buddhist temple in Hikkaduwa and met the chief monk. He asked me whether I could teach the child monks of this temple to understand and work with computers. In exchange I could get some lessons in buddhist meditation. I of course agreed to this fantastic opportunity! So today was the first lesson for the kids. We did some typing exercises and they paid 200 % attention the whole two hours. I was pleased.... Luckily I have some basic sinhala language skills this saved me the day :-)
Today I visited another NGO located in Seenigama near Hikkaduwa. This organisation was formed 1999 and earned a lot of reputation after the Tsunami 2004. More information about the so called 'Foundation of Goodness' (FOG) can be found here:
Panorama picture of the Foundation of Goodness (entrance)
Besides a computer education programme which consists of several different courses from beginners to advanced users this foundation is running also projects various other areas, e.g. environmental management, social topics and sports.
Primary school
Computer course for graphic design
The general manager of the foundation requested my support for their intermediate and advanced computer courses. I was quite impressed by the structured and well managed organisation and recognised that their work is a great benefit for the greater area around Seenigama as many poor rural people from nearby villages. So I agreed to help them. The next two weeks I will figure out the best way for me to support this organisation....
Today I had a meeting with the NGO FCS (Federation of Community Strength) in the e-learnig centre located in the village Gintota (near to the city Galle). Besides the lead of the organisation also other functional leads of the organisation were attending this meeting (leads of other learning centers in nearby villages, senior project consulter, etc.). Also the principal of the Gintota primary and secondary school was present. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss and agree the best activities in which I could be involved during my stay in the next months.
When I arrived in Gintota (I took the normal bus line) I was impressed by the nice cost village. The ocean was just a few meters away (this village suffered also a lot when the Tsunami in 2004 impacted the coast of Sri Lanka)
After a few hundred meters walk I arrived at the FCS building. The door was open and I entered the house....The FCS-President Chaminda de Silva gave me a worm welcome. Within the next hour also the others joined and we had a fruitful discussion over the next 4 hours. A very interesting opportunity we carved out was proposed by the school principal. He wants to start a computer course in the school. So we agreed to have a kickoff meeting in the next days with him and the relevant teaching staff in order to plan the next steps. We figured out that my task would be to train the teachers with the goal to make them capable of teaching the pupils basic and maybe also advanced computer skills. I have the feeling that this will be a challenge to get this done within 3 months..... But let's see :-)
We also discussed a lot of other ideas and opportunities (workshops at other schools or learning centers, cooperations with companies, etc.) and my head was nearly exploding after 4 hours of discussion. But I was happy because I realised that there was the potential of performing helpful and sustainable work during my stay here although the facilities of this organisation are quite basic and could be extended.
In the end we summarised the results and scheduled a next appointments before we departed. But of course I couldn't leave before shooting some last pictures.
While preparing for my flight I'm facing the challenge to pack all the donations and the stuff I need for the next 3 months. I think I'll have to reduce my own personal luggage to the max but still I need a genius in order not to exceed the free luggage limit.....
In the past days I found some other interesting helping initiatives in Sri Lanka.
I will post my findings later to day on Facebook It's really a great thing and also inspiring to see how much passion and energy people are investing to make a change!
Thanks to the support of my friend Michael Ricer the number of donated USB-sticks rised again. He gathered a remarkable number of second hand devices by asking friends and business partners. I think I owe you something Michael :-)´.
The manufacturer of the well known BlackBerry mobile phones Research In Motionkindly donates a set of microSD-cards. I guess I'm now on the best way to exceed the limit of free luggage which I can take with me to Sri Lanka :-). Thanks!
I thought it's a good idea to blog on the way. Getting started with this app on my mobile was kind of easy. Now let's see how this app will work out during my daily biz.....
The German foundation Stiftung Partner für Schule NRW donates 20 usb-sticks for the kids in Sri Lanka to be used in the computer education programme of FCS Sri Lanka.
Huawei Technologies Deutschland GmbH
is supporting the project with broadband usb-sticks and umts
wifi-modems. This is a great donation as this equipment can be very
helpful for the daily education work. Now we need data-sims to get the
stuff to operation. I hope to start a initiate a cooperation with
Vodafone's partner network Dialog Axiata PLC in Sri Lanka. Discussion
are already ongoing. I keep you posted....
Mobile Wi-Fi device and broadband connectivity USB Stick
I'm saying hello to everybody with this first post!
The first time I had this idea to help kids in Sri Lanka with this computer initiative was in the beginning of 2011. My parents are having godchildren in Sri Lanka, two sisters who were about to finish their O-level and A-level exams in Sri Lanka at that time.
From the left: myself, the two girls and their uncle
I know these two girls since their early childhood. For a couple of years now I stay in contact with them by texting via mobile (which is very funny sometimes, because of the facetious abbreviations in their text messages....). Unfortunately texting is not free of charge and additionally a very limited medium for communication. So I created an email account one day and gave instructions to the smaller sister about how to use this new medium. I sent her emails and waited for her response. But she never replied... As a result we started texting again, and when I returned to Sri Lanka after some months I asked about the email issue. She became sad and told me that she would have liked to send me emails but this was not possible because there is no computer - neither at home nor at school. The nearest internet cafe was a long walk away and the rates were too expensive for them. The girls are having ambitious visions about their future - both aiming for university entrance within the next couple of years - but have absolutely no experience in handling computers and performing the simplest computer work. This was the moment when I felt that I'd like to do something about it - not only for my two young charges but also for other kids living Sri Lanka…
This was the beginning and now let's see how far I can go :-)
