- Planting Technology -

Yesterday (Wednesday) was an awesome day!

A girl from ISEP, Mallory, had been in contact with a girl from California who started her own non-profit organization which operates in Ghana, called Planting Technology (PT). The company gets computers donated from companies in the US and then donates them to schools in small, rural villages/communities who don't have computer labs, etc.

So yesterday, the three of us along with two Ghanaians working with (PT) went to two high schools to evaluate the schools needs and create a community profile.

The first school was in Agogo and had about 600 students in the high school. There was ONE operating computer for all of the students to use.

The next school was in Somanya and there were about 10 working computers for 2000 students. The class sizes were so big for the computer class though, that six students were sitting behind one computer trying to learn computing skills.

Computer education is now "required" in Ghanaian high schools, so most of the time teachers will draw pictures on the board and teach them like that. The first time these students ever touch a computer is in high school, where Americans begin in kindergarten and before.

The schools obviously didn't have Internet access.. they didn't even have running water.

Mallory and I will be working with PT this semester as "interns". We will be writing reports and going back to the communities on our own to do more assessments for their board members. Andrea was excited after I told her my major and said she would let me write the press releases and take care of the media aspect as much as possible.

Andrea is such and amazing person! She studied abroad in Ghana while she was in college, and has now returned with her own Non profit organization. She is also an amazing resource. She has a Ghanaian friend who works at MetroTV in Ghana, and she gave me his phone number, so soon I will give him a call and hopefully shadow him in order to see how the media works in Ghana. Something interesting about the media though is that in order for Andrea's events to be published in the newspaper or broadcast in the news, she must PAY them! It's not a public service so much as a lucrative business for the reporter and photographer.

Ok. Well, that's enough for now. I will keep everyone posted.

Mel