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Viafrica 8 - Viafrica employees join Amsterdam -> Dakar |
GroupWiseR supports Viafrica and here's another reason why.
Viafrica employees join Amsterdam -> Dakar
On October the 27th of this year, the fourth Amsterdam-Dakar rally has taken off; a special car race which is not about winning but about collecting money for good ends in West Africa. Viafrica employees
Emmy Voltman and Joyce Donat will participate as two fearless women in this race. With their team called ‘De Nachtzusters Op Reis’ (which means something like ‘nurses on a journey’) they will concur stormy weather in Europe and sand storms in Africa; a
journey of almost 7000 kilometers! |  |
The "Nachtzusters" before their ambulance.
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Viafrica 7 - The first Service Contract |
GroupWiseR supports Viafrica and here's another reason why.
The first Service Contract A new
development in the Viafrica CLASSworks project is the setting up of locally
operated Service Centres and the use of a support contract for the maintenance
of the CLASSworks class-rooms. Since our establishment in 2003, the foundation
has been working to assist secondary schools in Eastern Africa with their
computer science classes. The CLASSworks project has so far successfully
enabled over 38 schools in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya to start teaching
Computer Sciences classes, according to the syllabus as defined by the
governments of these countries.
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Signing the first
service contract in Moshi, Tanzania |
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GroupWiseR supports Viafrica and here's another reason why.
Further
investment in our network Contacts
in the Kilimanjaro Region
Viafrica
extended its network in the Kilimanjaro Region. Finding possible
partners, sharing experiences, starting to work (maybe) with
government schools. We currently talk to the District Office who is
looking for possibilities to fund the service-contracts for the
public schools in Moshi. Also, we know several partners in youth, ICT
or local businesses working in the area (in October 2006 we were
present at an IT-seminar, organised by the business A&A with our
own ‘stand’). The Dioceses of Moshi also know Viafrica and
offered their support. Viafrica was also present at the last
Kilimanjaro headmaster meeting where more than 250 schools were
present.
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Preparing the Seminar |
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GroupWiseR supports Viafrica and here's another reason why.
ICT
is not only new to African organizations, also for many development
organizations this is a relatively new part within their working
field. During implementation in Africa Viafrica faces many problems
with ICT or ICT related projects of other companies. Many companies
just 'do ICT' apart from other projects. Often they don't have any
idea how to implement ICT within a project and are not capable of
running this effectively and sustainable. Besides that, many
development organizations and others focus on ICT in their education
projects. Often this stops by just putting computers in a class room.
Viafrica sees the results of this: schools fully equipped but with no
clue how to run a computer room. Also we see a lot of bad quality
where it comes to hardware. People sometimes just dump their old
equipment.
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Example of a bad classroom
in Kenya |
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Viafrica 4 - Training for project schools |
GroupWiseR supports Viafrica and here's another reason why.
In July 2006 Viafrica Tanzania organized a training
for computer teachers of the CLASSworks schools. During one week,
we trained 13 teachers of 7 project schools. Teacher training is a
central point when it comes to effectiveness of our project. Viafrica
therefore provides rather extensive training. The training took about
one week. One of our project schools, Hedaru secondary, invited us.
All
teachers stayed nearby in a hotel. The intake forms provided insight
in the knowledge level of the teachers and Viafrica tried to adjust
the training to the right level. Not only was this week useful because of
knowledge transfer, but also because we were able to build a
network with and among the teachers.
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Meeting with teachers
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Viafrica 3 - Visit of a Dutch consultant |
GroupWiseR supports Viafrica and here's another reason why.
Viafrica has spent time on making an arrangement to
streamline our
servicing to schools. Viafrica used to provide
computer services to
schools, but on an ad hoc basis. However, with the
growing number of
schools the maintenance of all these different
locations became more and more complicated. Due to this growth, also the costs
for servicing and
teacher training grew extensively. A solution had to
be found and
Viafrica took up the challenge.
Thanks to mediation
of Software Pool, a
Dutch ICT company, we got in touch with Rolf Smit.
This consultant from
the Netherlands, volunteered. Rolf has his own
company: Rolf SMIT
(Service Management and Information Technology) and
has therefore a lot
of experience in Service Management.
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Getting instructions from the experts |
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Viafrica 2 - CLASSworks project - Support for Local Schools |
GroupWiseR supports Viafrica and here's another reason why.
Most
schools that become part of our Viafrica CLASSworks project are private
schools. This is a well-thought choice of Viafrica. The example on this page will illustrate this.
We
believe that sustainability of CLASSworks can be guaranteed.
What do you need to run an ICT-class? First and foremost it is
knowledge and for knowledge one needs: money. We have in the past
misjudged the situation at schools, or, were touched by a headmaster
or his enthusiasm which convinced us to work with a poorer school as
well. Time has told us that in the sense of sustainability this was
not a success at all. |
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Computer classroom in Uru |
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Viafrica 1 - Just an Example - Kibosho Girls Secondary School |
GroupWiseR supports Viafrica and this interview by Liesbeth Hofs (April 2007) shows one of the reasons why.
Today I visit Kibosho Girls Secondary School, on behalf of
Viafrica: a girls’ school at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Kibosho received computers from Viafrica in 2006 as a part of the
CLASSworks project. The CLASSworks-installation consists of 16
computers, a server and a printer. Kibosho Girls did already have some
experience with computers, but worked untill that point mainly with old
and damaged computers. The donation of our good Pentium-3 computers was therefore more than welcome. |
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GroupWiseR supports Viafrica |
Nowadays
in most of the world for most people using a personal computer at work
or at
home is as common as using a phone. Actually, most of us probably
spend more time using a computer than using a phone. Of course traditional
phone systems in Africa
are not so common as elsewhere and also personal computers for private
use are not so common yet. The good news is that with some
help more and more people in Africa do get access to
the World Wide Web, for example by sharing one or more personal
computers within their community or school. |
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