Sunday, November 8, 2009
Book Donation!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Health Care Program
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Back in the US
Alexander Erickson
Managing Director, Ungana Foundation
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Deployment Assistance Program (XDAP)
In 2008 President of the Republic of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, signed a deal with One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC) to purchase over 100,000 laptops for Rwanda’s primary schools. OLPC is based on a product called the “XO” laptop; a piece of hardware utilized for children’s education more than a general processor. While understanding the XO is a step towards understanding technology, it drives overall education both through matriculation into the classroom and within a home environment. Requiring a combination of technical service and pedagogical training, the XO laptop is less a computer and more a virtual textbook. Children grasp this concept quickly while schools, teachers, and parents require a host of preparation modules before the community takes project sovereignty.
The Ungana Foundation’s XO Deployment Assistance Program (XDAP) provides this preparation including long-term support and after-school learning activities designed to maximize the XO’s value. Assistance means technical service for the Internet connection specifics and hardware provisions. It means teacher training, and student workshops. It means creating a regional laptop center for XDAP. This center serves as an information portal for recent private purchasers of the XO in Rubavu District, Rwanda. It makes laptops available, answers buyer questions, and tracks and manages XO laptop deployments across the district.
Simply put, children will benefit from these machines; imaginations will be exercised; and learning will take place in ways never before captured in a formal education setting.
We are seeking funding for this program from various sources, if you would like to help or you want to see the detailed XDAP plan, please email us at: info@unganafoundation.org
Alexander Erickson - Managing Director, Ungana Foundation
Friday, July 24, 2009
Differences in the Health Care World
Even Rwanda, which is one of the fastest developing countries in Africa, is still leaps and bounds away from achieving the health care standards of most western communities. UGNANA hopes that the seminars of this week will just be the start to the many programs that will be implemented into the region. This exciting event is just the beginning of the many great resources that will soon be flowing to Africa. I can only look forward to the changes that will occur here and the hand that UNGANA will have in its success. Thanks for reading and I plan on bringing more great news here soon.