A big loss for Arusha Region [2021-02-15]

It’s been a time of ups and downs since the last blog post.  Reneal Team Tanzania continues to grieve the death of Arusha Region’s Administrative Secretary Richard Kwitega, who was tragically killed in a car accident in early February.  RAS Kwitega was a great friend of education in Arusha Region, and his loss is felt deeply by many.  Reneal’s Team in Tanzania as well as Reneal’s Board were honored to know him and join hands with him in helping Tanzania students learn about technology.  RIP RAS Kwitega.

In the last blog post, we reported on the generous donation of laptops from Apto Solutions (www.aptosolutions.com).  All 56 of the laptops, of a perfect vintage to be thin clients in Reneal’s system, checked out perfectly!  Apto Solutions followed that up with a donation of computer mice last week, so Reneal now has several boxes of laptops, adapters, and mice packed and ready to head to Tanzania.  David has continued to work on school evaluations, with some schools already well underway in the process of setting up their computer lab rooms.  Reneal is thrilled about the opportunity afforded by the generosity of Apto Solutions to reach so many additional schools with computer labs!  Thanks so much, Apto Solutions!

The new school year in Tanzania began in January, so technicians Robert Nyangaka, Erick Mneney, and Anold Mselle have been visiting each school with a Reneal computer lab to check out the equipment and help the computer teachers with beginning-of-the-year administrative tasks in the lab.  We are grateful for the Team’s patience and skill in sorting out the various hardware and software issues that arise.  It is especially exciting to see active use already at the new labs in Longido District that were installed in late 2020!  One big near-term task is installing updates at the five MacBook labs in Arusha District.  It was a bit of a challenge to transmit the big update file successfully, but Neal and Robert together made it happen.

Here in the US, Neal (with invaluable input from Reneal Board member Katherine Yen) is developing a new Reneal website.  We don’t have a date yet for the “unveiling”, but they are making great progress!

 [Photo: The late RAS Kwitega with Reneal Country Director David Nyangaka and Reneal Board members in 2018]