[OLPC library] Visioning for OLPC Health Initiatives

[Josh Hehner]

  I've put up a document under the Health area of the OLPC wiki  
entitled "Visioning for OLPC Health Initiatives", the beginning part  
of which is appended below. The work in progress is at http:// 
wiki.laptop.org/go/Health/vision

Take care,
Josh Hehner


The Importance of OLPC to Health

The OLPC project is an important and innovative initiative in the  
area of education. In large part this is because the project is so  
much more than just a new gadget; rather it is grounded in sound  
philosophy and theory, and presents a vision for a radical  
transformation of access to eduction.

OLPC's approach to education is predicated upon three basic tenets  
(from the Learning Vision page):

    1. Learning and high-quality education for all is essential to  
provide a fair, equitable, economically and socially viable society;

    2. Access to mobile laptops on a sufficient scale provide real  
benefits for learning and dramatic improvement of education on a  
national scale;

    3. So long as computers remain unnecessarily expensive such  
potential gains remain a privilege for a select few.

Health initiatives must be similarly grounded, and direct analogues  
to these tenets can be drawn from, and adapted for, the health care  
field.

Further, health challenges are fundamental barriers to education; one  
cannot take part in learning or teaching efforts while struggling to  
have basic needs met, while sick or injured.

It is also easy to imagine that XOs, even while distributed under the  
auspices of an educational program, will be used by children and  
families to tackle whatever problems they may be dealing with in  
their lives and communities.

Principles

Our health initiatives must be about how we can support health  
promotion and public health efforts in resource-poor settings. The  
model put forward by OLPC suggests that this can be facilitated with  
ready access to these technologies, coupled with technical and social  
infrastructure development.

    1. Good health and high-quality health care for all is essential  
to provide a fair, equitable, economically and socially viable society.

    2. Access to mobile laptops on a sufficient scale can provide  
real benefits for health care, and could dramatically improve the  
quality and quantity of life for the most underprivileged.

    3. Health initiatives must value local knowledge and expertise,  
while making free and ready access to an international wealth of  
health learning and evidence-based medical knowledge.

    4. The initiatives, like the rest of the OLPC project, must  
incorporate a collaborative approach into every aspect of their  
implementation.

    5. Children, youth and family members in affected communities  
must be viewed as potential experts, as self-healers, as self- 
directed learners, and OLPC health initiatives must increase direct  
involvement in healthy living rather than increase dependencies on  
outside support.

    6. OLPC's approach to education in the community should be  
mirrored by a "care in the community" approach which seeks to value  
community members who are already serving in caring and supportive  
roles (community leaders, teachers, health workers, mothers, elders,  
etc...), build their capacity, and support them with infrastructural  
development and integration with networks of more advanced resources.

    7. "OLPC is not, at heart, a technology program."[1] As with  
education, local health projects incorporating XOs will need to pay  
great attention to infrastructure by addressing long-term concerns  
and sustainability. Locally based institutional structures should be  
supported rather than forming dependencies on outside agencies.




.-----------------------------------------
|  Josh Hehner, A-EMCA, PCP
|  Director of Community Medicine Programs
|  Para el Mundo (PaM) Canada
|  josh at paraelmundo.org
|  http://www.paraelmundo.org
|  481 Calle Mart’n Weiss, 2û Piso
|  M‡ncora, Piura, Perœ
|  +51 (73) 258-250
|  217 St. George St., Unit 44
|  Toronto, Canada, M5R 3S7
|  +1 (416) 520-9441



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