Heading to Mombasa

I arrived in Mombasa yesterday with three volunteers and we have met the Camara team down here. There are 13 of us in all in Mombasa. The scale of what we have to do over the next few weeks is staggering. We did one school in Nairobi in 3 days. We have 20 schools to do from Mombasa to Lamu over the next 4 weeks! Though that sounds challenging (and it is) many of the schools are 'clusters' so the training of the teachers is done a number of schools at a time. this is normal Camara policy as it means the schools support one another with maintenance etc when we leave.

Some remarkable developments have happened. If I am honest I worry about maintenance and on going support for the Camara labs. And certainly computers break down and need repairing however local umbrella organisations are now linking up with the schools and offering ongoing maintenance at the cost oif about 150 euros per year per school which is affordable.

Amazingly they have even found local partners to repair power supplies!

The plan is to build a Camara digital hub here based on refurbishment and open source software. Implicit in the model is ongoing support for all the schools...

Its going to be a challenge to setup the refurbishment facility up here but we beleive it is possible and indeed necessary - nearly 1000 Camara computers have been shipped to this region alone in the last two years and the demand is growing....

Gary