Powering Potential with our Educating-Through-Technology program has installed at each school, five computers, a solar power system to run them, and is funding two technology trainers for three months at each school.

A hallmark of our program is the RACHEL educational content from worldpossible.org. This content provides a wealth of current knowledge to the students and teachers – selected wikipedia sections, math and science teaching videos, medical reference books, ebooks from Project Gutenberg, and other content. Tanzania is suffering from a book famine and severe shortage of teachers so RACHEL fills a vital educational need.

This program is a collaboration with the local communities and the Tanzanian national government. The schools supplied the rooms for the computer labs, the tables and chairs, and they have agreed to continue the employment of at least one trainer for one year, after the initial three months of training. The Karatu District Council provided a four-wheel drive vehicle with driver to transport our equipment and staff to and from the schools for the installations, and the Tanzanian Rural Energy Agency helped fund the project.

The installations were managed by Albin Mathias, Powering Potential’s Country Director with assistance from Elibariki Magnus, our Karatu Representative.

After the installations Janice Lathen, the Founding Executive Director of Powering Potential, traveled from New York to the Karatu District to inspect the program. She was joined by Mr. Theo Mlaki, who until his recent retirement, served for 20 years as the Director of Information for the Tanzanian Commission for Science and Technology. He now deploys IBM consultants to Tanzania in his position as advisor to the Digital Opportunities Trust. They were both extremely impressed with what they saw.

Below are photos of the installation and the inspection at Baray school. Baray is in a very rural area, 65km (40 miles) from Karatu town over rocky, dirt roads and takes about 1 1/2 hours to get there.

There is also a photo of the celebration which the school hosted at the end of the installation to thank Albin Mathias and Elibariki Magnus for their new computer lab. Elibariki is a graduate of Baray school so it was an especially poignant experience for him to return to his alma mater to bring an Educating-Through-Technology program.

Below is a photo of Albin, our Country Director, briefing Mr. Mlaki on the technology. We use 15 watt computers with open source (free) software running on DC (direct current) electricity provided by solar power. We also install equipment to access the Internet through cellphone signals although the signals are sometimes too weak to get connected in these rural areas. We are working to find a way to boost the strength of the signals.

Baray, Slahamo and Endala schools have the same system.

This implementation was Phase 1 of our two phase Educating-Through-Technology program. Powering Potential has completed Phase 1 at five schools and Phase 1 and 2 at an additional school.

We are currently raising funds to implement Phase 2 at Welwel and Florian schools in February/March of 2013. Phase 2 is the addition of 15 more computers at each school. After Phase 2 is completed the schools can offer the Tanzanian national curriculum of Information and Computer Studies courses to its students.

Would you like to open up the modern world to eager students who lack adequate books and teachers? If so, donation information.

I arrived home Saturday afternoon July 14. I am happy to be home. This trip involved a lot of moving around Tanzania and living out of a suitcase. Here’s a recap of the traveling:

7,200 miles to Arusha: June 18-21
70 mils to Karatu: June 22-27
345 miles to Dar es Salaam: June 28-July 1
45 miles to Zanizibar: July 2-3
70 miles to Pemba: July 4
115 miles to Dar es Salaam: July 4-7
345 miles to Karatu: July 8-10
120 miles to Mugumu, Serengeti: July 11-12
7,400 miles to New York: arriving home July 14

I love Tanzania and the Tanzanians, but I am always happy to put away my suitcase and enjoy home!

On July 11, Dr. Kebwe’s secretary and his driver picked me up in Karatu and we drove six hours over rocky dirt roads to reach the Serengeti District headquarters of Mugumu. The Serengeti District is much bigger than the Serengeti National Park. Dr. Kebwe is the Mbunge (Memeber of Parliament) from the Serengeti District and he arranged my visit.

The next day we spent all day driving again over rocky dirt roads looking at schools. Mid-day we stopped for lunch. The restaurant was able to offer us nyama, ugali, wali na maharagwe (meat, porridge, rice and beans). I’m a vegetarian so I passed on the meat, I’ve had ugali and it’s not to my liking, so I feasted on wali na maharagwe while dining with the District Education Officer and Dr. Kebwe’s secretary:

Below are two photos from Rigicha Secondary School. In the first photo are school officials in the school’s potential computer lab and the second photo is a shot of their school:

The headmaster at Kitunguruma School:

Classrooms at Ikorongo School:

Potential computer lab at Busawe School:

The district officials want Powering Potential to decide which of the schools will receive the Technology Tent. We can only choose three schools. It’s a difficult decision. 

I hope you liked the photos! I missed a shot of the ostriches eating a snake. 🙂

Onward and Upward,
Janice

A special thank you to Mr. Suleiman Saleh for taking me to Pemba (an island which is part of the Zanzibar Archipelago) to view future schools for Powering Potential. Mr. Saleh is the Second Secretary for Political Affairs at the Tanzanian Embassy in Washington D.C.

In the photo below, at Kizimbani Secondary School, from left to right is Mr. Saleh from the Tanzanian Embassy; the assistant headmaster; and Muhsin Shamte, the headmaster. This will be the first school where we will implement The Technology Tent in Pemba.

Below is the current computer room at Wingwi Secondary School. They do have some computers but they are very old and the day we were there they weren’t in use because the electricity had gone off which happens from time to time in Tanzania. With the solar power which Powering Potential installs we can avoid that problem.

We also visited a primary school which needs English books. The following two photos are from that school:

I’m looking forward to returning to Pemba and working with the beautiful people I met there!

I had the honor and pleasure of joining the Ambassador Mwanaidi Maajar (Tanzanian ambassador to the U.S.) and her safari group for their one-day visit to Zanzibar on July 2. In the photo below, the group is waiting in the VIP airport lounge after arriving at the Zanzibar airport. When you travel with diplomats you get VIP service  🙂

In the following photo I’m relaxing with Ambassador Maajar at the Zanzibar Serena hotel. Powering Potential’s budget does not allow for me to stay at such fancy hotels but a Tanzanian/American member of the group who is very appreciative of Powering Potential’s work offered to pay for my room so that I could stay with the group and the hotel helped out by offering the lower resident’s rate.

Below is the scene being prepared for our dinner at the hotel with Second Vice-President (Zanzibar) Ambassador Seif Ali Iddi and Ministers of Zanzibar. Although Zanzibar is part of Tanzania, they have their own Ministries. It’s a unique political arrangement between mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. Zanzibar is magical.

After our lunch with President Kikwete on June 30, we were taken to a State House garden and invited to have our photo taken with him and then we each formally said goodbye to him and another photo was taken. I’d like to express a special thank you to Muhidin Michuzi, the President’s Assistant Press Secretary, for sending me the photos. Before the following photo was taken he referred to me as “Mama Karatu” and complimented me on the work of Powering Potential and I invited him to come and visit one of our schools.

In the photo below, he’s telling me in Swahili that when he comes to Karatu he will come and visit a Powering Potential school.

Another historic day for Powering Potential and personally an exciting one for me. (I’m in the second row with the turquoise shawl.)

Ambassador Maajar had invited me to join her VIP safari group of American business people for their activities in Dar es Salaam including dinner with President Kikwete. Plans changed and we had lunch instead of dinner with him at the State House today. A few of us were also invited to have our photos taken individually with the president. I’ll get a copy of that photo later. President Kikwete referred to me as “Mama Karatu” and he complimented me on our work. I invited him to visit our project and he said the next time he’s in Karatu he will come and visit. I also had a chance to tell the U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania more about Powering Potential. He gave us a grant in 2010.

In her remarks at lunch, which were videotaped, Ambassador Maajar mentioned Powering Potential by name. That video will eventually be on youtube. Ametupa heshima kubwa sana. (She has given us a very big honor.)

Tomorrow I join the group for Saba Saba, The International Trade Fair and then on Monday we fly to Zanzibar for activities there.

Stay tuned…..

Today was another historic day for Powering Potential.

We signed a contract with the Tanzanian Rural Energy Agency, a division of the Ministry of Energy and Minerals. They awarded us a grant of  Tsh 13,517,874. That’s Tanzanian shillings not U.S. dollars. It’s equivalent to about $8,600.

Left to right: Janice Lathen (Powering Potential, Founding Executive Director) Eng. Msofe (Rural Energy Agency, Director for Technical Services) Albin Mathias (Powering Potential, Country Director).

This grant will help cover the costs of The Technology Tent Phase 1 at Baray and Endallah Secondary Schools which will be implemented in October 2012.

I’m thrilled that a Tanzanian government agency is supporting our work.

If you want to go fast, go alone
If you want to go far, go together

Today the Tanzanian Ambassador to the U.S. Ambassador Maajar (in black and white head scarf) and her VIP safari group of distinguished American business people visited a Powering Potential school (Banjika Secondary School in Karatu). She arrived with a police escort accompanied by the District Commissioner and other high level district officials. She gave an inspiring talk to the students. I showed them the computer lab and spoke to them about Powering Potential. They were very impressed with the educational content (RACHEL) which we have installed on the computers. It was an especially exciting day for us and everyone was very honored by her visit. A reporter from the Washington Times was part of the ambassador’s group and he interviewed me and a few students.

Tomorrow morning I am off to Dar es Salaam for meetings and then on Saturday I will join the ambassador and her group for dinner with President Kikwete at the State House.

I arrived in Tanzania on June 19 and hit the ground running with meetings, technology issues, etc. I was a guest at the Arusha Rotary Club and had a chance to tell them briefly about our work. There is so much interest here in Powering Potential and the students and teachers are eager to learn about computers. Our work is cut out for us.

Stay tuned….