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Tanzania Bound [2018-08-20]

Tomorrow is the big day – the Reneal team will be departing for Tanzania!  Planning for this trip began just about the time Neal and I returned from last year’s work.  We are so thrilled that we’ll be joined on this trip by Reneal Board of Directors members Sharon Fingold and Katherine Yen, along with their husbands Antonio Martinez (former Board member) and Marcus Lee.  They will be with us for the first week of work in Arusha.  It’s been a lot of effort preparing the equipment at this end, but we take our hats off to the new schools in Arusha who have had the challenge of setting up new computer rooms.

Schools must commit to providing security, tables and chairs, and electricity in order to receive a Reneal computer lab.  That may not sound like much, but it’s a big deal for these public schools with very limited resources.  The Tanzania government does not allow schools to charge student fees.  This is wonderful for students, but it poses challenges to schools to upgrade – or even maintain – the buildings and facilities.  When a school chooses to make a computer lab, it’s a big commitment.

Reneal’s goals for this trip are as follows:

1. Installation of four new computer laboratories at public secondary schools in Arusha District, in partnership with the Arusha District Council: Kiranyi Secondary School, Kimnyaki Secondary School, Sokon II Secondary School, and Oldonyosambu Secondary School.

2. Replacement and enhancement at the existing Reneal computer laboratories at Mlangarini Secondary School, Mukulat Secondary School, Enyoito Secondary School, Mateves Secondary School, Nduruma Secondary School, and Oldadai Secondary School.

3. Software updates at all ten of the existing Reneal schools.

4. Establishment of a repository of spare equipment (to be maintained at the Arusha Regional Office) such that non-functioning equipment can be replaced promptly at the supported secondary schools.

The upgrades at Mukulat and Mlangarini are significant.  These schools, both good performers, were our first secondary school installations back in 2013.  We are replacing their servers with more powerful units, and laptops will replace their original desktop clients from 2013.  Neal will have the challenging task of moving the teacher and student files and information from the old servers to the new ones for these two schools.

Late in 2017, we tallied up the number of laptops we’d need to achieve these goals.  The total was 103, a seemingly unreachable goal.  But with donations both big and small coming in throughout the year, we ended up with 114 laptops packed and ready to go!  Thanks go to Asante Africa, Fidelity Insurance, Free Geek, Junior Achievement, Maloney Elementary School in Fremont, National Cristina Foundation, Polycom, Renew Computers, Sound Family Medicine, UNeed2, World Computer Exchange, and many generous individual donors for making this happen!

Last but not least, we are extremely grateful for the hard work of Reneal School Liaison David Nyangaka.  He is the ICT Officer for the Arusha Regional Office and has been instrumental in helping the schools prepare and in working all of our logistics issues.  We couldn’t do this without David!

 [Photo: the new computer room at Kiranyi Secondary School, ready for installation (photo by David Nyangaka)]