Poverty Elimination Project

In my UNI classes, projects have been discussed that bring technology to students in areas of the world where technology would greatly impact the way of life for students. In Dr. Z's http://drzreflects.blogspot.com/ blog on OLPC Computer: Buy One, Keep One he talks about such a project. If you have not heard about the project, I suggest that you take a look.

I found this article http://www.citrus.unitec.ac.nz/projects/peru_cic.html
about the Centre for Information Technology Research Unitec New Zealand's POVERTY ELIMINATION PROJECT.

Description from the article: "Networking remote communities to high value activities and markets through a system of telecenters and education. This project is aimed at the sustainable relief of poverty in remote agricultural areas of Peru with high indigenous populations. By providing communication tools, local telecentres and training to these remote communities we enable other groups in the community to benefit, including education, health, local governance, new business initiatives and eco-tourism."

"Project objectives:

• To provide the tools and training to connect remote agricultural communities to existing planting and harvesting advice and market information of the Ministry of Agriculture in Peru (Ministerio de Agricultura).
• To use these tools and training to provide remote agricultural communities access to higher valued business initiatives and social support systems in education, health and governance.
• To provide remote agriculture communities access to training and expertise resources."

There are many other projects out there that are designed to bring a computer to a student. It would be neat for my West High students to raise money and buy a computer for a student in a country far from Iowa. My students then could communicate with the student and learn about other cultures while learning to be better society members.

See my previous posting on 1:1 computing for more info http://radtechnobysarah.blogspot.com/search/label/1:1%20computing

Photo at http://www.citrus.unitec.ac.nz/projects/peru_images/it0030.html