[Grassroots-l] Introduction to Kitale efforts

Tue Apr 1 01:19:38 EDT 2008

Hi Edward,

Thank you for your quick response.

We don't have any sister schools.  How would I set up an arrangement?

Our students are age 4-7.  So I don't think they could help in any translation efforts.  They learn in English and Swahili.

Thank you for the heads up on the website, I "inherited" the content and it definitely needs housekeeping.  The original content was must have been generated by the Yahoo tools.  I use Dreamweaver and pretty much edit directly in css or html.

Best,
Deborah

-----Original Message-----
From: Edward Cherlin [mailto:echerlin at gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 10:04 PM
To: Deborah Najm
Cc: grassroots at lists.laptop.org
Subject: Re: [Grassroots-l] Introduction to Kitale efforts

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 9:25 PM, Deborah Najm <debnajm at socal.rr.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,

Welcome.

> I have just joined the group and I would like to introduce myself.  Recently
> I have become involved with 2 schools in Kitale, Kenya. The current donor
> program, begun by my father currently feeds the children their one meal a
> day.  The director of the schools just visited us in Southern California.
> Due to the new outreach we are hoping to expand our aid.

Do your schools have sister schools anywhere? Would you like to set up
an arrangement? This is part of Earth Treasury's mission.

> I was able to send him back with lots of teaching materials that were
> generously donated.

See the catalog of free electronic textbooks at http://www.librarianchick.com/.

> I learned about the OLPC last year and I would like to
> start efforts to get our Yuya Orphanage school and Mois Bridge Academy
> involved.  Any suggestions or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Would your students be able to help with localizing XO software into
Gikuyu or other languages of Kenya? Ethnologue
http://www.ethnologue.org/show_country.asp?name=KE lists the following
languages with a million speakers or more.

* Gikuyu [kik] 5,347,000
* Gusii [guz] 1,582,000
* Kalenjin [kln] 2,458,123
* Kamba [kam] 2,448,300
* Luo [luo] 3,185,000
* Luyia [luy] 3,418,083
* Meru [mer] 1,305,000

The better-known Maasai numbered only 453,000 in Kenya in the 1994
census, apparently the most recent data available.

> The schools are run by www.vbministries.com - I just got their website up
> and running.

It displays very badly in Firefox, with overlapping text blocks and
misaligned graphics. Please validate and correct your pages. On
looking at your page source at
http://www.vbministries.org/outreach.html, I find this invalid
structure:

<head>...
<script>...
</head>...
</script>

I didn't examine the HTML any further.

Your page says that it was created in Yahoo! PageBuilder 2.61.90. If
so, that would be a good reason to stay away from Yahoo! HTML tools.
%-[

> Warmest regards,
>
> Deborah Najm
>
>
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>
>

-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay