Last Tuesday was a magnificent day for St Mary’s Day Care Centre (DCC) as it launched a project called One Laptop per Child (OLPC), an American non-profit organisation devoted to enhancing early childhood education.
Last Tuesday was a magnificent day for St Mary’s Day Care Centre (DCC) as it launched a project called One Laptop per Child (OLPC), an American non-profit organisation devoted to enhancing early childhood education.
The OLPC project is meant to create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a low-cost, low-power laptop connected with content and software designed for collaborative, self-empowered learning. "The laptops are specially designed for children from age eight to 15," said St Mary’s DCC Project Manager, Roger Domingo.
"This will not only be useful to the learners, but to the community at large, " he said, saying that the DCC plans to share the knowledge the learners gain with the community. Early this year, the OLPC committee announced that it will donate thousands of their special child-friendly laptops to select teams willing to build partnerships with local organisations in African countries.
St Mary’s Day Care Centre and the Holy Cross After School Programme at Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery in Grahamstown were two of the three selected beneficiaries. St Mary’s Day Care Centre provides food and care to some of the most impoverished and disadvantaged school-going children in Grahamstown.
Currently, the centre is the second home of 87 children between the ages of 6 and 18. Similarly, the Holy Cross after-school programme provides transportation, food and after-school care to some of the area’s poor rural children. There are currently 16 students in their program from the junior through senior classes.
To assist with implementing the OLPC program, the two day care centres have formed partnerships with student volunteers at Rhodes University and Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, United States. Together, this partnership is called GTECH -Grahamstown/Gettysburg: Together Empowering Children.
A former Mary’s Day Care Centre volunteer, Aimee George- who is now a Gettysburg College herself- applied for the OLPC sponsorship.Beginning in July 2009, each child at St Mary’s and Holy Cross will be given their own OLPC laptop.
Student volunteers from Rhodes, Gettysburg and Gadra will work with the children to engage them in learning through the use of special computer programmes.Aside from utilising the educational tools available on the laptops, children will be encouraged to play games and explore the functions on their own. An internet connection will also be installed.
Through the use of these specially designed child-friendly laptops,the children of St. Mary’s and Holy will not only be able to take advantage of unique educational tools but will also gain a level of comfort with technology.
Each child will own and care for his/her own laptop, giving him/her a sense of personal responsibility and empowerment.
