The Grant Application
I submitted my application for a grant to Peace Corps last week. Part of the application involved writing a considerable bit about the project and its aims, the community and their needs, and plans for implementation and sustainability. Below, I’ve posted most of what I wrote for the application to give you all an idea of what my aims were with the computer lab. Basically, the plan is to buy about 15 new computers, renovate the room, get an internet connection, and after school, run the lab as an internet café that the community can use as well as the students and the teachers. Not everything is finalized yet. I only have a verbal promise from the chief of Yefri for the 1500 Ghana Cedis the community is required to put up (the community puts up 25% and the rest comes from donors in the US). I originally planned to run the café as a non-profit, but in the interest of sustainability I’m thinking it would be wiser to use a for-profit model. However, the majority of the planning is done. What’s written below is about as accurate a synopsis of the whole project as you are likely to get from me. Enjoy.
Executive Summary
This grant will be used to rebuild the Yefriman Secondary School computer lab and provide the community of Yefri with local, reasonably priced internet access. Presently, the overall condition of the lab is quite dire. There are gaping holes in the walls and cracks in the ceiling, and the windows and doors need to be replaced. Insects, mice, and lizards have free roam of the lab and frequently use the three working computers as nests. With the money from this grant, we can renovate the lab room, buy newer computers, and even provide internet access to the students and community members. Plans to buy new doors and windows, with stronger locks, are already being funded by the community and the renovations to the room should be completed by summer. Once the room is refurbished and outfitted with the 15 new computers we hope to be able to purchase, the lab will be in use every day by the 300+ students of Yefriman Secondary School. In addition to this, the computer lab will function as an internet café for the people living in and around Yefri. Most of the people in the community are low income farmers with little or no education and limited English language skills. Computer classes will be taught in Twi, the local language, by the best performing students at the school, and students and teachers will help community members search for and translate information related to anything from personal health to agriculture to news and current events.
Background Information
Yefri is a small, rural village and most of the people living hear are low income farmers and traders. Many lack electricity and almost none own motor vehicles. For most people, access to Nkoranza, the nearest town with a large market, is limited. Yefriman Secondary School, which was founded by the chief of Yefri several years back and mainly serves the community of Yefri and several of the surrounding villages, is also quite poor. Most of the students here are struggling to complete the secondary school curriculum and learn all the necessary information required for the West African Secondary School Curriculum Examination (WASSCE), which they will take prior to graduating after their fourth year.
There are a number of very old computers at the school, but most no longer function. Water, dust, insects and mice have all taken their toll on the machines. With class sizes averaging well over 30 students, the three working computers are insufficient. The broken machines do serve as a teaching aid for lessons on computer hardware, but it is nearly impossible to teach software concepts, such as word processing and internet use, with only three computers, all of which lack CD/DVD drives and USB ports.
Community Need
Presently, the students of Yefriman Secondary School are falling behind in their Information and Computer Technology (ICT) classes. The primary reason for this is because the school lacks a proper, functioning computer lab. Within the next few years, an entire section of the WASSCE will be dedicated to ICT. This puts the students of Yefriman Secondary School at a severe disadvantage relative to the students of wealthier, more prestigious secondary schools with proper computer labs, causing the students of Yefri to fall further behind. Ultimately, the lack of a computer lab capable of facilitating proper ICT instruction will make admission into university and access to good jobs much harder to come by for the students of Yefri, leaving them trapped in the cycle of poverty for another generation.
Community Initiation and Direction
The plans for a computer lab had first been proposed to Matthew, the Peace Corps volunteer whom I replaced last August. However, for a number of reasons, namely the recalcitrance and political machinations of the school board, the project was never able to get off the ground due to the lack of community funding. Matthew was able to complete some smaller projects, such as a library, but requested that he be replaced by an ICT teacher so as to facilitating the funding and assembly of a proper computer lab.
When I first met Peter, the headmaster of Yefriman Secondary School, and Frank, another teacher and my counterpart, the computer lab was one of the first topics we discussed. All three of us, as well as several other teachers at the school have been working over the past few months to develop a plan for a new computer lab. We have met with members of the PTA and the local chief, both of whom have expressed wholehearted support for our efforts here and have offered financial assistance.
In the interest of benefiting the community of Yefri, and not just the students at the school, I thought the lab could also function as an internet café after school hours and on the weekends. To gauge the opinions of the community on the issue, advertise the fact that Yefriman Secondary School was considering opening an internet cafe, and ascertain basic demographic information, I composed a short survey. I gave the survey questions to ten students from the school on a Friday and told them to survey their neighbors and report the results to me on Monday. The reason I used students, instead of surveying the communtiy myself was twofold. First, I wanted to emphasize the fact that this was a community initiated project. By sending the students around the town, the community is able to see that this is a project initiated by Ghanaians, not imposed by Americans. Second, my Twi is still limited and I would not have been able to accurately communicate the survey questions written in English to non-English speakers.
Community Contributions
The room currently being used as the computer lab is in a state of utter disrepair. There are holes in the walls and cracks in the ceiling, and the windows and door do not close properly. Before we purchase any expensive electronics, it is essential that we have a room capable of securing whatever we leave inside of it. In order for the room to be ready for the computers that we intend to purchase in August, the school has already begun planning renovations to the room. The chief of Yefri has generously offered to provide 1500 Ghana Cedis (25% of our goal of 6000 Cedis) for the purchase and installation of four new windows and a new door, as well as other minor repairs to the room.
In addition to this, we plan on preparing the room for the installation of a small air conditioning unit, once we receive the partnership contribution. Although an air conditioner is expensive, and seen as a luxury even in the United States, it is essential to keep the room cool and closed off from the outside in order to ensure proper functioning of the computers and to keep them free from dust and other particles that get blown in through open windows and kicked up by ceiling fans.
Project Implementation
We have already secured guarantees of funding from donors in the United States, and the community of Yefri. After sending off this grant application, the headmaster and I will be contacting retailers and construction workers in the area in order to buy and install the new windows and doors by summer time. Our hope is that through networking with influential Ghanaians in the area, such as the chief of Yefri, we can secure a good deal on the hardware and installation. In addition to this, we will have the students at the school clean the room before and after the installation of the windows and doors.
Over the summer, any other minor repairs needed will be taken care of and the room will be prepared for the installation of an air conditioner. Meanwhile, the headmaster and several of the ICT teachers at the school will be in contact with computer retailers in Techiman, Kumasi, and possibly Accra. Instead of purchasing brand new computers, we are looking for slightly used models which can be bought for about 200 Cedis each. Presently, our goal is to make our purchase in the beginning of August and spend the next month setting the computers, as well as purchasing other pieces of hardware, such as networking equipment and a modem through one of the mobile phone operators in the area (there are no telephone land lines in the area).
Hopefully, the lab will be functioning by the beginning of the school year at which point the students can begin to take advantage of its facilities. In addition to this, we will open the lab in the late afternoons and evenings, as well as on Saturdays, for use by the community members. There will be a rotating schedule of ICT teachers covering shifts in the lab. This will also be when students in their third and fourth year of secondary school, who have done well in ICT, will be encouraged to teach basic computer classes to the community members in Twi (some form of compensation will be provided as an incentive to the students, in order to make the classes worth their while).
If all goes according to plan, the lab will be functioning smoothly and the community members will take advantage of the resources available to them. I have already begun compiling a list of websites with information pertinent to rural Africans. While the internet café may be run at cost in the beginning, while other technical issues are being sorted out, our long term plan is to operate the internet café as a small business and invest some of the profits back into the lab and the school.
Project Sustainability
One of the most exigent concerns pertaining to the construction of a computer lab is the safety and maintenance of its facilities and hardware. Stories abound in the developing world of teachers and administrators who sell pieces of hardware or even entire computers belonging to schools for their own personal profit. Regardless of whether they act out of avarice or the unfortunate constraints of the circumstances of their impoverishment, it is always the students who suffer. To prevent the theft and deterioration of the lab, both while I’m here and after I have returned to America, I have proposed that the PTA create within itself an “ICT Council” which, once or twice a semester, coinciding with PTA meetings, will take inventory of the lab, find out what computers are not working and why, and determine what is being done to resolve the problems. And while the teachers and administrators of the school will, hopefully, be doing their best to spot any problems and prevent theft before it occurs, a second set of eyes on the lab will further disincentivize any prospective malfeasance.
Additionally, we believe that by eventually running the internet café as a for-profit business, with the school and perhaps other community organizations, such as the PTA, functioning as stake holders, the project will be sustainable and even turn a profit which can be reinvested or paid out to stakeholders in the form of a dividend. However, one of the biggest challenges we will face will be finding qualified teachers to run the lab. I will be at my site until August 2011 and my top priority, once the lab is up and running, will be to train the other teachers at the school in how to properly administrate and maintain the computers, as well as troubleshoot issues with the networking hardware and the internet connection. I plan on leaving behind as extensive a collection as possible of technical manuals and reference materials, both in terms of books and online documentation, of which future administrators can take advantage.
Ultimately, our hope is that by the time I leave, the community will have enough of a vested interest in the maintenance and upkeep of the lab that the school and the community members will be able to keep the lab running smoothly. Despite the relative impoverishment of the community, these people are not technophobes. Mobile phone use is almost universal, even among people who lack electricity in their own homes. According to the feedback from the survey I administered, enthusiasm for the internet café is exceptionally high. Despite the fact that many of the people in this community have never used the internet, or even a computer (other than their mobile phone), I suspect they will take to the technology very quickly and use it to radically improve the quality of their own lives.
