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At long last: Tanzania 2013! [2013-08-16]

Reneal IEO is just a few short days away from beginning the 2013 projects in Tanzania.  It’s hard to believe the big day is finally almost here.  It’s been such a long road, starting almost immediately when Neal returned home from his trip last year; he got home on October 27th, and the first draft of the 2013 Tanzania proposal was dated November 4th.  The last ten months have brought challenges and excitement as we’ve planned and prepared for this moment.

Just this week, 33 computers and monitors ordered from the World Computer Exchange (www.worldcomputerexchange.org) were unloaded from a shipping container in Dar es Salaam.  Those computers left America way back in May, arriving in Dar in late July.  After numerous twists and turns, they finally cleared customs and the container was released for unloading.  These well-traveled computers will be delivered in the next few days to Mukulat and Mlangarini Secondary Schools in Arusha.   Neal and I will be carrying 12 laptops for Paroma Secondary School in Musoma, as well as the three servers and network switches, in our baggage.  We will be installing IT labs at these three schools and providing training to the teachers.

Neal has spent untold hours preparing the software for the IT labs at these three schools.  One recent exciting addition is a set of instructional videos from Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org/) that have been translated to Swahili, thanks to work by the Asante Africa Foundation (www.asanteafrica.org).  Neal now has about 400 of the Swahili videos loaded onto the Reneal IEO server, as well as almost 4000 of the Khan Academy videos in English.  This will be a fantastic resource for the students at these three schools, especially since they don’t have internet access.  I also created several training videos for the teachers that will be stored on the servers for their future reference.

It’s a good time to thank the Reneal IEO Board of Directors and the generous donors who have made all of this possible.  Through the combined efforts of many, students and teachers in Tanzania will soon have their very own computer lab at their schools!