So much infrastructure are poor oe non-existant, including a frustrating lack of information. We (in the USA) are used to vast amounts of information at our fingertips. If we don’t know something we just turn to the nearest high speed connected recent model computer – never far away- and look it the answers.
Here in Togo, knowledge is passed slowly and deliberately. Books aren’t readily available, and knowledge is passed from teacher to student and generation-to-generation as if it is written in stone. How can improvements be implemented if no one knows about them?
But lots of information is out there, online, for free. Computers (old) and an internet connection (slow as molasses) are available at cyber cafes, but people just don’t know how to use them. This means that people can’t find the information that would really help them (water sanitation, improved latrine design, cooking with solar, or even scholarships to study at a university) because they don’t know how to use a mouse and keyboard.
So my job here is to be a small bridge to the world of information and communication technologies. I work with schools and businesses to teach computer skills. This ranges from using a mouse to computer programming. I’ve built web sites with students, taught teachers to use a word processor, and worked on moving business records to spreadsheets.
One project last year was a Computer Camp, in which we introduced basic computer skills to the top 36 students in the region. Many students came to the camp having never sat in front of a computer before; they all left having knowing how to type documents do academic searches on the internet.
( More at http://www.rebeccahunt.com/campinf/en/index.html )
We would like to do the camp again this year, but we need to pay for it somehow. So, here is your chance to help bridge the digital divide. $75 pays for one student to come to the camp. (But a bigger donation is also accepted).
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=693-332
If we don’t raise the full amount requested for the camp (3000), we don’t get to do it at all. The community is offering the computer hall for free, emergency health care for the campers, notebooks, pens, and helping with other costs. Any help you can give will stay in the community and will be used in the most cost effective manner possible.
After 10 years as a techie in the United States, Rebecca Hunt joined the
Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa. She taught computer skills and
business skills in a medium sized city. After 2 years in Togo, she
moved to Accra, Ghana to work in a internet and mobile telephone
startup.
