Team
We are all MIT undergraduates and are unbelievably excited about the prospect of helping the children most in need this summer.
- Mary Wang ('12): Project Leader
- Owen Derby ('12): Technology Leader
- Maddie Mirzoeff ('12): Teaching Leader
- Janet Li ('12): Community Relations Leader
Basic Info
- Who: Peace Corps and Zach Swank, Environmental Educator
- Where: Bababe, Mauritania Brakna Region
- When: June 20th-August 22nd for some of us, June 20th-August 29th for others
Working with the Children
The children will be out of school during the period that we are there. The rainy season comes at the beginning of August, so we will not need to worry about the children needing to care for the fields during that time. Often, children will travel during the summer (the communities are sometimes nomadic, traveling to visit relatives during the summer). To help keep the children in town for our program, we will have our ground contact Zach Swank notify his community of the fact that we will be bringing the laptops and making the program available. We will make sure that we provide learning opportunities to all ethnicities and both genders.
We will work with Peace Corp volunteers to establish this project. With their input and the input of the community, we will determine how long a school day should be.
Impact on Children
Our approach to teaching children will be to take learning from passive memorization to active engagement. We believe that given the right tools and resources, children will teach themselves. One of our goals with the XOs is to teach the children how to think critically about their environment, allowing them to turn mundane situations into learning opportunities. With the tools the XOs provide, children will be able to record their community history snd cultural vibrance. They will be able to investigate their surroundings analytically, something that is beneficial for both the children and the community. They will be able to express their creativity by writing and sharing stories, artwork, and music. They will be able to model electrical circuits, keep track of local market trends, and apply their knowledge practically. This will allow them to grow up be engaged and critical adults with greater awareness of the world.
The current school system in Mauritania is not very conducive to children's learning, due in large part to the deep poverty of the country and the consequent lack of resources and tools available for students. Bringing in 100 laptops to a classroom of 6-12 year old children will have inconceivably eye-opening and irreversible effects on how they learn. Allowing each child to learn and explore the XO's one-on-one will give every student the chance to be exposed to innovative technology and all of the opportunities that come with it. The biggest opportunity is undoubtedly the Internet; the ability for students to access this infinite information database will have astounding effects on their capacity and yearning for knowledge and learning. We will also use the XO's as learning tools in the classrooms, teaching the children how to use the laptops to gain more understanding about each other and their own environment.
In addition, girls are often neglected or mistreated in Mauritanian schools. Through our program, we will ensure that girls get the same opportunities that boys do, and that all of the children, regardless of gender, will be able to be exposed to the whole wide world through XO's.
Local Partner and Sustainability
We will be working with the Peace Corps and our community contact will be Zach Swank, an environmental educator in Bababe. We will work with the Peace Corps volunteers in the area and train them in teaching with XOs. They will remain after we leave, incorporating the XOs into the during and after school programs they currently work in and teaching new volunteers those skills.
In order to provide sustained support after deployment, our team is in the process of receiving recognition from MIT as an official student organization. This status will provide seed money through which we can further fundraise to maintain internet connectivity, power, connections to servers, repairs, and eventual replacement of the laptops. In addition, this will further student interest in this initiative. Furthermore, because our team will exist as a club long after the initial deployment, we will be able to provide logistical support in addition to financial support for our collaborators in Bogue. Our local partner, the Peace Corps, will remain in the area for many years after our departure. Their dedicated presence in the Bogue GMC combined with our continual support will ensure that the program is sustained for several years to come.
As an MIT club, we will apply annually for additional grants to keep the initiative ongoing. We will encourage the children to keep in contact with us by emailing us their stories and artwork and letting us know how they are doing.
Communication
The local language in Bababe is Pulaar, a language used in Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia, and western Mali. There are already English-speaking Peace Corps volunteers working in Bababe who must communicate with the local population of Bababe, we should have no trouble finding translators to help us teach students and communicate with adults in the local community. To overcome the language barrier, mentors at the Bogue GMC who speak both English and Pulaar will serve as translators. Prior to deployment, our team will familiarize translating staff with our curriculum, goals, and XO capabilities to guarantee effective translation.