The (in)famous OLPC computer
As part of our trip to Akuapem North School District for our youth media literacy program development, we visited one of the local schools that might be one of the training sites. Classrooms were as expected, basically cement walls, a cement floor, a roof, windows open to let in air, no electrical lighting, just the ambient sunlight, a chalkboard, a teacher, and a room packed with desks and kids. Sounds like any classroom, except that, if you were to describe every detail of a classroom in, say, Philadelphia, you have A LOT more than just this list. In this school, as in most schools I have seen in Ghana, this is as far as you can describe it. Nothing more.Probably tough to do any electronic media training in one of these rooms. Unless we bring a car battery or a generator. Or a battery-powered radio.
We went to one of their spare rooms where they said we could hold the training. There was a single power outlet in the room. And a single light bulb. You start to see what the developing world is up against when trying to compete in The Digital Age. As well as why mobile phones are becoming the computers of much of the developing world. [click to continue…]
Mobile phone card stand in Ghana
It’s funny how local needs and constraints in developing countries often don’t line up with development assistance interventions. I had a first-hand encounter with this on a visit to the Akuapem North School District to get to know one of the likely partners in the youth media literacy program we are developing in Ghana in connection with the Press Freedom 2.0 initiative.
On our way to the meeting, along the road to Akropong, I enjoyed some of the things that make Ghana, Ghana. Things like, the shops with religious names like God is Good Fast Food (indeed), Fear Not Fashion Home, and my personal favorite, Christ in You Pastries. The many stands along the road where people sell a few items, like groundnuts, or phone cards. The worn and rugged conditions of roads and buildings that comforting because they are beyond “keeping up appearances”, and are really just things. [click to continue…]
My first meeting was with the local partner. He came fifteen minutes early. I was kind of shocked. I had fully expected him to be late. Africa time, and all.
I bought him lunch, ordered jollof rice with chicken for me (feel weird going right for the foreign food when I could have local—it’s the PCV in me, I guess), got down to brass tacks. Introduced myself, explained what we were here to do, the stage of the proposal, all that jazz. I’m a “get right to it” sort of person. [click to continue…]
