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<font face="serif">Dear Prof. Kato,<br>
<br>
On behalf of the OLPC effort in Sri Lanka let me thank you for your
initiatives in the Sri Sumangala Girls' School project. Thank you also
for contacting us re. the OLPC effort in Sri Lanka.<br>
<br>
Currently we are in the process of just setting up an OLPC Foundation
through which the first consignment of OLPC's are expected to arrive in
Sri Lanka within the next month for a Pilot project for just 9 small
schools (1 in each province) in Sri Lanka. As such, this would be our
very first experience with this promising technology, and our
consignment being limited and earmarked for a specific project makes us
unable to expand it to include Sri Sumangala Girls' School for the
moment.<br>
<br>
We are however seeking to expand the present initiative by asking Sri
Lankan companies to consider this seriously as part of their CSR, and
have got together a very active set of entrepreneurs promoting it in
Sri Lanka. I will pass on this request to them (i.e. the OLPC Sri Lanka
Foundation), so that as we expand this programme, complementing your
initiatives at Sri Sumangala Girls' School would be a reasonable choice
for support. As you know, at the moment there is no obvious channel
through which to obtain OLPC's except by ordering in bulk through such
a foundation (this being one of the biggest stumbling blocks to more
wide spread use of OLPC in countries like ours).<br>
<br>
Thank you again and best regards,<br>
<br>
Ruvan (Weerasinghe)<br>
For OLPC Initiative in Sri Lanka.<br>
<br>
</font><br>
Ann Kato wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:49B6108A.4040709@unige.ch" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear Sir/Madame,
My husband and I sponsoring the Sri Sumangala Girls’ School in Weligama
on the southern coast of Sri Lanka. The school, with 2700 students from
grades 3 to 13, was severely damaged during the tsunami. Thirteen of the
girls died and over half of the girls lost close members of their
families including parents, brothers and sisters.
We have been aiding the school by providing books, writing material,
computers and offering prizes for the best students in each class. We
visited the school in 2005 and again in 2008 to develop a closer contact
with the students and staff and to have a better understanding of their
needs. The girls dream of being doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers and
engineers. They are very motivated, curious and eager to advance their
education.
To sustain our program, we have been seeking financial assistance in the
way of donations. Our primary goal is to provide computers to this
school. They have at present approximately 15 out-dated computers and
they do not have a laptop in the school. Recently a friend of ours
purchased an OLPC on e-bay in the United States and we realize how
revolutionary this type of computer could be for this devastated school.
We are writing to inquire how we can purchase 10 to 20 OLPComputers so
that we can start to equip the Sri Sumangala Girls’ school.
I would like to thank you in advance for your consideration of my request.
Ann C. Kato
Professor, Dept. of Neuroscience
Faculty of Medicine
University of Geneva, Switzerland
e-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Ann.Kato@unige.ch">Ann.Kato@unige.ch</a>
Tel : +41-22-343-2592
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Sri-lanka mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Sri-lanka@lists.laptop.org">Sri-lanka@lists.laptop.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sri-lanka">http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sri-lanka</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
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