Laptops for Uganda

Those who are following this blog please spread the word on the following proposal; If you know or have any laptops 1.2Ghz or more and it is of no longer any use it can be of great use at my Secondary School where I am teaching in Uganda. Please send any used laptops to the following address (Gary Brown 725 Charlie Brown Rd. Central City, Ky 42330), this is my parent address they will clean and restore the laptop and ship any to my address posted on this blog. Upon arrival the laptops will be used for student in the computer lap (St. Marys Senior Secondary School is one of the few schools with a working comp. lab + internet) and by faculty for marking grades. If you wish to contact myself my information is posted on this blog. I greatly appreciate any donations and the school and students will be forever great full.

Thank you again and feel free to contact myself or my parent at anytime. Happy Holidays!

Income Generating Projects / Activities

The following is a list of IGA/P's that I am currently working on or will implement in the future.
1) Production of paraffin from heating and condensing plastics

2) Solar-ovens: keywords to search for "Kenya solar cookers" is by far the best results with google search.

3) Recycling paper: check out cardsfromafrica.com, and organization based out of Rwanda which produces greeting cards to be sold online. Atleast this is a great fine-arts project at minimum.

4) Paper jewelry: A trend for many fund raisers in schools and community groups is making paper jewelry, this can be done almost with no cost. To find more information, try researching "triangle paper beads, and paper beads", the process takes some refinement but I have found local groups that are willing to give much needed insight into the production of the jewelry.

I hope this may provide some grounds for the reader to kick-off a great IGA/P. GL.!

SMAGS

SMAGS (ST. Mary's All Girls School) foundation stone, by far a prime placement for any volunteer. With around 500 students all secondary level (secondary equates to highschool) it has near every amenity an education volunteer could wish for: example 3 labs (max 60students per) with running water / gas and stock rooms, chem lab with a well stocked assortment of chemicals and a far amount of glassware, and a library that is has a collection that is impressive by any standards. The library and labs where a joint venture by the Ministry of Edu and Chinesse Embassy and I am very grateful for what they have done. Also a rarity at many schools, SMAGS has a computuer lab with 6 working desktops and a computer course that is an intro to computers along with an intro to microsoft word / excel. Alot of fun can be had helping students with powerpoint, many enjoy making presentations and sending them to their family and freinds. The school puts the resources to great use daily. St. Mary's is a boarding school and one of the few left due to large harsh financial diffuculties placed on the school when accomidating 500 students. Traditionally boarding schools and private school require larger school fees payed per term for 3 terms a year. While our school fees are modest by comparison it has become for seeable that fees will increase, I plan to post a blog that might help solve this problem. The next post will be all the IGA/P (Income Generating Activities / Projects) that I have implemented and will begin, hope this might help future volunteers! Eboyai Ejok *stay well.