[Olpc-philippines] XOs in the Philippines

[Mel Chua]

> Hello fellow XO enthusiasts. I'm a member of a progressive church you 
> never heard of - Unitarian Universalists. We have two churches in Manila 

Actually, some of my best friends from high school (I grew up in 
Chicago; my parents immigrated from Manila) were UU. I wasn't aware 
there were UU congregations in the Philippines, though!

You may be interested in the Religion section of the library, and 
perhaps contributing some content there.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Collections#Religion

> How can I help?

How do you want to help?

We need to nucleate a solid project with concrete, short-term goals in 
the Philippines, whether that's a Jam, a pilot, or a summer internship 
to offer to interested local students working on projects. Since OLPC is 
very, very small in terms of both finances and people, it's going to be 
the grassroots groups in any given country (you!) who step up and make 
things happen. I've dropped the ball on this in the past... it's hard to 
nucleate a movement in the Philippines when you're working full time in 
the US.

What needs to happen is for people actually in the Philippines to stand 
up and say "Okay, this pilot needs to happen," or "Okay, this conference 
needs to have OLPC stuff in it," or "Okay, we need to get students from 
this class to illustrate children's books in Tagalog for their final art 
project." And then do it. People will be listening in on this list to 
offer help, pointers to resources, introductions, etc. but it's really 
up to the folks who want things to happen to start doing them. The 
meeting Charles Chen just proposed setting up is an *excellent* start - 
when you get together, start thinking of projects, post them to the 
list, begin writing them up on the wiki.

Another thought is to schedule a chat time where people interested in 
OLPC Philippines can meet online - we haven't done this yet - and it's 
easier than flying everyone from all their different towns (and 
countries!) in to Manila. If people are free this coming Sunday (Feb 3) 
afternoon at 8pm Manila time (7am EST in the United States) I'll be on 
chat then and we can try to get some concrete projects going as well. Go 
on #olpc-groups at that time if you want to be in that conversation - 
it's an IRC channel on irc.freenode.net. The easiest way to do this is 
to go to http://en.forum.laptop.org/chat/, sign in (no need to make a 
login), and then type "/join #olpc-groups" (no quotes) once you log in. 
[[IRC]] (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IRC) has more information if you want 
to use a chat program rather than your browser.

Some parting words based on my experiences with OLPC grassroots activity 
over the past year: don't overcentralize - not everything needs to be 
under a single "OLPC PHILIPPINES!" banner - everything is grassroots 
here, and any chapter started by any school or group of people is 
equally "official." (Or rather, things are as official as you make them 
out to be.) There *should* be many independent, yet communicating (via 
this mailing list) project groups working on entirely different things; 
try to avoid creating organizational bottlenecks and hierarchies, find 
local sponsors, sources of funding and help...

But more importantly, do things. Propose things. Don't ask for 
permission - find your own way to make things happen.

-Mel (mchua on IRC, Mchua on the wiki)