[OLPC India] More overview

[ash & jess scott]

New Life Medical and Educational Trust has slum preschools (Balwadis)
throughout the Mumbai area.

At these schools children receive a single meal per day, social
interaction, and simple education (an attempt to get them up to mainstream
school level).

There has recently been a proposal to develop two simple computer training
centers to help children develop their education in a way that is relevant
to a computer centric world (current programs involve little or no computer
competency and are largely unstructured in their educational delivery).

These two initial centers are in areas predominantly inhabited by lower
socio-economic 'Banjara' people.

As always, cost is an issue so I looked into obtaining second hand laptops
and installing Ubuntu on them. I then realized that what I was formulating
as an alternative was very similar to the OLPC project and thought that I
ought to make contact to understand the implementation of OLPC better.

The children are aged from 2 years to 10 years (but most are 5 to 7) are
from very poor families (who obtain seasonal income mainly in the fishing
industry), live in rough environment slum areas of Mumbai and are, without
educational development, at risk of prostitution/trafficking/
exploitation among other ill-effects of the poverty cycle.

At present, in the two proposed areas of Banjara children, there are
approximately 30 - 40 children frequenting each Balwadi (slum pre-school)
however throughout all the balwadis that our organization implements there
are at least several thousand children attending on a daily basis.

PS: does anyone know why I can't 'reply all' to the messages I'm receiving?

Ash
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