Nothing amazing happened today.
You see, Tuesday is our report-writing, staff-meeting, paper-working day. What can be special about a day like that?
Well, if you have been following us, you know that we are working hard on our community center. Pteah Sahakum in Khmer. it took us a while to get people to stop calling it by the name of the owner of the land and make it into an institution with its own name. now it even has its own children song: "pteah sahakum sabai sabai", fun at the community center, is a short clapping song we sing every Sunday at the beginning of the children's activity. But even better - these days we hear children singing it when we walk to the market or for coffee. How great is that??
Anyways, part of the great change we have brought into the village was the introduction of computer lessons. These, as you can assume, are overwhelmingly popular. when we figured that with our 6 laptops we can only give each student so much time, without having us collapse as teachers, our volunteers came up with a brilliant idea: open computer time, that will be managed by our "excellence team".
Today we had the first open computer time, and to be honest - I was nervous. Are we going to finish the day with 6 computers like we started? How are we going to control the great demand? How will we make people want to come back?
Well, as I said - today nothing special happened. or at least that's the way our excellence team made us feel. They were operating a computer room, the library and even a game room as if they were doing it for years. We came up with rules for the computer room (20 minutes each, no more than 2 per computer etc.), and they were enforcing them as if each one of them is running his own internet cafe.
To think that only two weeks ago our crappy one laptop at home was the closest most of the people here could get to a computer, and to know that from today they will be able to do it when ever they want - what a difference!! ok, ok, not when ever they want: when they have open computer time, and only after writing their name on the waiting list at the excellence team representative, and only for 20 minutes at a time etc etc, but it's actually these limitations and that order, that make the people here understand that something is changing.
Our excellence team, who will be our replacement once we are gone, with the newly appointed manager of the Pteah Sahakum, Mr Sen, have once again made us so proud! Together with the more than a hundred people who came to enjoy the 2 open computer hours today, they have showed us how important our work is to them.
What an amazing day!
You see, Tuesday is our report-writing, staff-meeting, paper-working day. What can be special about a day like that?
Well, if you have been following us, you know that we are working hard on our community center. Pteah Sahakum in Khmer. it took us a while to get people to stop calling it by the name of the owner of the land and make it into an institution with its own name. now it even has its own children song: "pteah sahakum sabai sabai", fun at the community center, is a short clapping song we sing every Sunday at the beginning of the children's activity. But even better - these days we hear children singing it when we walk to the market or for coffee. How great is that??
Anyways, part of the great change we have brought into the village was the introduction of computer lessons. These, as you can assume, are overwhelmingly popular. when we figured that with our 6 laptops we can only give each student so much time, without having us collapse as teachers, our volunteers came up with a brilliant idea: open computer time, that will be managed by our "excellence team".
Today we had the first open computer time, and to be honest - I was nervous. Are we going to finish the day with 6 computers like we started? How are we going to control the great demand? How will we make people want to come back?
Well, as I said - today nothing special happened. or at least that's the way our excellence team made us feel. They were operating a computer room, the library and even a game room as if they were doing it for years. We came up with rules for the computer room (20 minutes each, no more than 2 per computer etc.), and they were enforcing them as if each one of them is running his own internet cafe.
To think that only two weeks ago our crappy one laptop at home was the closest most of the people here could get to a computer, and to know that from today they will be able to do it when ever they want - what a difference!! ok, ok, not when ever they want: when they have open computer time, and only after writing their name on the waiting list at the excellence team representative, and only for 20 minutes at a time etc etc, but it's actually these limitations and that order, that make the people here understand that something is changing.
Our excellence team, who will be our replacement once we are gone, with the newly appointed manager of the Pteah Sahakum, Mr Sen, have once again made us so proud! Together with the more than a hundred people who came to enjoy the 2 open computer hours today, they have showed us how important our work is to them.
What an amazing day!
רשומות
2 תגובות:
מאוד מאוד התרגשתי לקרוא על ההצלחה הכאילו קטנה, ובעצם ממש גדולה שלכם. שאו ברכה!
נ.ב. עוד מעט תוכל לקרוא את הבלוג שלי, מאתיופיה...
תודה רבה דדה גילי!!
מה אתיופיה, מה? מה את הולכת לעשות שם?
הוסף רשומת תגובה