From Janice Lathen, Founding Executive Director:

I finished up a three week trip to Tanzania, returning home on August 10. It was a very fruitful trip. The Segal Family Foundation had invited me to escort Rich and Joanna Segal on a trip through Tanzania to visit grantee sites and for a three day animal viewing safari in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. Thank you to the Segals for treating me to an exciting trip. It was a pleasure to spend a week with Rich and Joanna.

We visited two Powering Potential schools, Florian and Welwel, and had a meeting at the District Commissioner’s office and the District Executive Director’s office. We also met, at Welwel Secondary School, with district officials, heads of schools, computer teachers, and Powering Potential program graduates and staff and spent the afternoon discussing the best way forward. It was an informative meeting for all involved.

Assembly at Florian Secondary School

Janice, Rich, Albin, Elibariki and Happy Powering Potential office

Meeting in Karatu District Executive Director’s Office

At the invitation of V. Ena Haines, Janice Lathen joined her on June 11 for a UNESCO event in the Trusteeship Chamber at the United Nations. Ms. Haines is an active board member of Powering Potential and is the Director of Information Technology at Teachers College/Columbia University. Ms. Lathen is the Founding Executive Director of Powering Potential.

The event was part of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Initiative on Education and was titled: Moving from access to learning in the post-2015 dialogue: Why indicators matter and how we can use them well.

Janice Lathen in the Trusteeship Chamber

V. Ena Haines and Janice Lathen

Below are photos posted by Albin Mathias, Country Director

Sitting from left Elzabeth Kipandwa, Head of the school,Wel wel secondary school,  Bernad  Mnyenyelwa ,District Education Officer(KARATU) Sijanona District Academic Officer  Mr Bryson Joseph new computer teacher and Albin Mathias, Country Director (standing)

 Hello i’m Elibariki Magnus Powering Potential’s Karatu representative

Bellow are photos of what we have done!

It took a week to complete Computer classroom expansions at two school Florian and Wel wel
Yesterday we finish installation at Wel wel Students were very exited to see the new class

The new computer classroom with 18 computers for students one computer for teacher and the twentieth at staff room

Also Server which contain Educational content which can be accessed by student at each computer through wireless Router

we have offline selected Wikipedia from  http://worldpossible.org/

Hello,I’m Albin Mathias, powering potential country Director .We have started phase 2 Installation at Florian
 and Welwel Secondary schools This time we have visitor Mr Mtituh from Tanzania Postal Bank (TPB)
 The two schools have computers studies as part of their curriculum  now. After this Installation we will have three schools with computers studies as part of curriculum in which both phase 1 and phase 2 are completed

Mr Mtituh From Tanzania Postal Bank

Assembling new raspberry pi low power computers

Albin and Mtituh configuring the system

 Elibariki Magnus
 Unpacking New Monitors and computer at Florian

Mr Mtituh  briefing students on search Engines such as Google 

With New computer Teacher assigned by the government to teach computer at Florian

At office preparing for next day work

Solar Fundi from Ensol explaining the new system installation

Hello 
I am Elibariki Magnus Powering Potential’s  Karatu Representative. Below are some photos of our office

At our new office preparation for upcoming computer lab expansion Florian and Wel wel secondary school

Albin and Elibariki busy at office

Albin Mathias,Powering potential country director

Elibariki Magnus Karatu Representative

On Friday, November 23 Powering Potential hosted a conference and lunch for heads of schools where our program is implemented. We also invited district officials but they were busy managing national tests which are happening now in Tanzania.

The conference was helpful to them and us. We got very useful feedback and the heads of the schools got a chance to connect with each other and share their questions, comments and suggestions. This is something I would like to do twice a year.

Below are photos:

Powering Potential needs an office/storage room/test lab space in Karatu. I lovingly refer to this future space as our International Headquarters  🙂

The lodge where I always stay in Karatu (Crater Rim View Inn) is building a room on their grounds and I have spoken to the owner about the possibility of renting it from him.

Below is Powering Potential’s International Headquarters (in my mind) taking shape. It’s small, as Albin and Elibariki observe, but it’s bigger than what we have now, as I point out.

By the way, we do already have a post office box in Karatu. It will be useful when I need to send over supplies. Elibariki, our Karatu representative, checks the box periodically but so far no mail has arrived. If you would like to give him a surprise he would love, send a letter or card to:

Elibariki Magnus
Powering Potential
P.O. Box 93
Karatu, Arusha
TANZANIA

Milton Finger, the Director of International Programs for the Livermore, California Rotary Club joined me (Janice Lathen, Founding Executive Director of Powering Potential) on this trip to Tanzania. He is committed to securing a Rotary International grant to expand our program. He wanted to see firsthand our work and meet local Rotarians and government officials.

We meet with Rotarians in Arusha town, and in Karatu town I arranged for him to meet with Mr. Berege the Karatu District Executive Director. (Tanzania is divided, from large to small, into regions, districts, cities, towns, and villages. Karatu is the name of a district and a town, and Arusha is the name of a region, a district and a town. So to distinguish, people say Karatu or Arusha town if they mean the town not the region or the district 🙂 

Mr. Finger wanted a letter from district officials confirming the need for computers and stating their commitment to maintaining the program. In preparation for that meeting, I gave Mr. Finger’s Rotary proposal to Mr. Godfrey Marisham and invited him to view our program. Mr. Marisham is the Assistant Education Officer – Karatu District Council and the Ministry of Education’s representative in Karatu; he advises the District Executive Director on education matters.

Below are photos of Mr. Marisham’s visit to view our program at Welwel Secondary School on November 10. He is accompanied (left to right) by Severine Herman, Elibariki Magnus and Albin Mathias – Powering Potential’s Welwel school trainer, Karatu Representative and Country Director respectfully; they explained our program to Mr. Marisham and answered all of his questions.

Mr. Marisham commented on the practicality of our program and was especially impressed with the RACHEL digital educational content. After reading Mr. Finger’s proposal and visiting our program, Mr. Marisham was eager to advise the Executive Director to accept Mr. Finger’s proposal and give him the letter which he requested.

On Monday November 12 before our meeting with district officials, Mr. Finger and his companion, Eileen Velen, and I also visited Welwel school. Below Mr. Finger is watching a Khan Academy video from RACHEL on Moles and Avogadro Numbers. There are more than one kind of moles 🙂  this one has something to do with chemistry. Mr. Finger is a highly respected chemist.

Mr. Finger, Eileen and I also visited Banjika Secondary School (see photo below). Milt and Eileen were somewhat surprised to see how inexperienced the students were with computers. For those of us from more developed countries it is hard to imagine that there are people in this world who have never even seen a computer. These beginning students were learning how to hold a mouse, point, click….think back to when you were first introduced to a computer…

The photo below shows our meeting with Messrs. Berege, Mbwambo and Marisham, the Karatu District Executive Director, District Education Officer and Assistant Education Officer respectfully. Mr. Marisham advised the Executive Director to accept Mr. Finger’s Rotary proposal and to give him his requested letter, which he did. The next day I picked up the signed letter.

Below are Albin and Elibariki on a beloved motorcycle leaving Welwel school. I am always asking them to PLEASE wear helmets. I want these guys alive 🙂

And Milt, Eileen and I at the Ngorongoro Farmhouse, the Kibo Safari Lodge where Milt and Eileen were staying:

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