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The end of an era [2022-01-14]

Happy New Year!  2022 is a big year for Reneal, with our 10th anniversary as a 501(c)(3) coming up in April.  And this is the 300th blog post since the first one back in March of 2013.  We certainly could not have foreseen Reneal’s changes over the years since then.  We will be installing our 50th computer lab in Tanzania in the next few weeks!  And 2022 brings more exciting expansion, thanks to a continuing partnership with Apto Solutions.  But Reneal also bids farewell to its earliest mission in the Philippines.

The Phase 3 equipment donated by Apto Solutions has been distributed to the new schools in Tanzania, and the first computer lab installation is scheduled for next week!  This installation will be Reneal’s first in Dodoma Region.  We are so grateful for the generosity of Apto Solutions, giving Reneal the capacity to extend support to additional areas in Tanzania.  Look for a final report on the 2021 Apto Solutions-Reneal projects soon.  All in all, we will celebrate adding 22 new labs with the equipment donated by Apto Solutions in 2021.

And just last week, we received word from Apto Solutions that they will be continuing their support of Reneal in 2022!  I’ve been working with Reneal Country Director David Nyangaka to finalize the details of the proposal, but we expect to be adding computer labs at an additional 8 schools in the second half of 2022 and 10 more in the first part of 2023.  We are incredibly grateful to Apto Solutions for helping Reneal bring computers to so many more students in Tanzania!  Thanks also go to our long-time partners in Tanzania, Habari Node and Arusha Node Marie, who assist us with the installation work.  Reneal Team Tanzania has very busy 2022 ahead, with completing the 2021 installation work, doing a major update on all servers, and embarking on the 2022 installations.

On a sadder note, Reneal’s Board of Directors decided at the last meeting to end Reneal’s long-standing computerization program in the Philippines as of the end of 2021.  This program began in 2006, when Neal and I were US Peace Corps Volunteers serving at Compostela National High School.  In 2014 under the auspices of Reneal, we began expanding these computer labs to other schools on the island of Cebu.  Over the years, Reneal installed a total of 36 computer labs in the Philippines, with the last installation in January of 2020.  But about the time Reneal began expanding its program in Cebu, the Philippines Department of Education initiated the DepEd Computerization Program (DCP) with the intention of providing schools with ICT resources.  With the widespread distribution of government-sponsored computer equipment to public high schools, we found that Reneal’s labs were no longer meeting the needs of the schools.  When the pandemic hit, in-class teaching ceased, exacerbating the lack of usage.  In late 2020 about half of the computer labs were deactivated, and the rest were deactivated last month.  While we are sad to see the end of the Reneal program in the Philippines, we are so pleased that public high schools now have computers for their students.  As the Reneal program ends, we send our deepest thanks to those who served on Reneal Team Philippines over the years: Sir Jade Reyes, Lloyd Tuñacao, Rhog Sampan, and Ervin Formentera.  And we are eternally grateful to the many dedicated teachers and administrators that we had the honor of working with over these many years.  We have had the joy of seeing many, many students build their computer skills on computers donated to Reneal.  It has been a pleasure and a privilege to serve the students and teachers of the Philippines.

 (Photo: a great memory from Reneal’s work in the Philippines – the 2015 student contest)