Providing Lesotho's Children with Keys to the World

This is the story of our efforts to end the vicious cycle of poverty, disease, inadequate education, and early death
in a remote rural community in Lesotho, Africa, by providing quality education and life skills
to the young children there. Join us on our journey ...

Monday, July 26, 2010

Emails to Fortunate -- Task details

excerpts from email ...

From: Janissa
To: Fortunate
Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 10:13 AM

Sawubona, Lumela, and Fantastic!

Before we proceed any further, could I ask you to send me two names and contact information for people who can serve as references for you. I hate to have to do this, but after my experience of trusting the person in Durban, and then having him disappear with two of our laptops, I'm afraid I have to check. That said, I am a trusting person at heart, so for now, you seem very sincere, I am going trust you, and I will assume that your references are impeccable. I will continue to work with you unless I hear otherwise. I hope you understand.

Thank you for checking on HIV/AIDS resources.

I have been contacted by a woman, Colleen Smith, from the MindSet organization. That is all running smoothly, so I will handle that for the time being. I may ask you to take over once we get into dealing with logistics.

Yes, please contact Thulani Madondo. I have attached the email I sent to him. It also contains one of the emails that referred him to me.

What we'd like to get from the visit to Kliptown Youth Project are details on setting up a school network and wireless internet system, observation of classes using the XO laptops, exercises and lessons used by 6th and 7th grade students, and possibly an introduction to basic Linux/Sugar programming. We would also like to have time to talk about possible pitfalls in setting up our program and any advice Thulani can give us.

I would like to schedule the visit sometime in November, because I expect to travel to Lesotho around 1 November and stay until early December. However, I'm not sure what dates will be best for the teachers in Ketane, and we need to arrange the trip based on their availability, not mine.

Let me send the Project Manager Tsela "Mapesh" Mapeshoane an email to introduce you. I will let you know when I hear back from him, and then you two can correspond directly to determine what dates they can travel and how long they can be away.

In my original email to Thulani Madondo, I mentioned that we had little or nothing to pay for his services. However, I am going to try to raise money specifically for the visit to the Kliptown, and I will try to raise enough money to pay for his help and training.

Please ask Thulani if he would be willing to let us visit Kliptown, if he can provide us with what we are looking for, what dates he would be available, and what he would charge to train 3-6 adults.

Please cc: me on all emails you send for the project. Also, please keep a log of all phone calls with the phone number, person(s) you spoke to, purpose of the call, and summary of what was talked about. If there is a charge for the call, keep a record of that too.

I really, really appreciate you taking on this work. It will be wonderful to work with you, and it will free up my time to do more fundraising for the project.

Your email smile is infectious. It made me smile too!

Sala kahle,
Janissa
________________________________
From: Janissa
To: Fortunate
Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 10:28 AM

I forgot to send the timetable you asked for. I've attached a pdf I put together recently with tasks and some deadlines for the entire crew. Some of this has changed slightly and I haven't had time to update it, but this will give you a general idea of what everyone is working on.
 
Deadlines for your work:
  • HIV/AIDS material - No specific deadline. November would be good, but this can be ongoing.
  • Thulani Madondo - Make contact as soon as possible. Once I have secured funding, arrangements will depend on when the trip is scheduled, but hopefully they will need to be completed by late October.
I hope this helps.

Smile!
Janissa

Email from Fortunate -- tasks she will take on

From: Fortunate
To: Janissa
Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 2:58 AM

Hi Janissa and thanks!

I am so excited!!!! There is so much to do! All the suggestions you made sound so exciting and something i would do and enjoy doing! I think the best would be for you to send me some form of schedule that you are working with then i can get to work and set my own sort of timetable for these tasks. Most can be done concurrently so that shouldnt be a problem. In the meantime maybe i can go ahead and make contact with Thulani Madondo? Maybe you could fwd me the email you sent him so that we speak from the same page? I would enjoy making arrangements for this visit.

I would also be very interested in searching for HIV and AIDS material for young children, i already have ideas from some organisations i contacted and worked with last year, this is definitely something i would enjoy doing...So i will get to it and let you know if i come across something interesting.

I do not own a OLPC XO.
I see you are learning a bit of isiXhosa/IsiZulu....Thank you for this opportunity to work with your organisation and change the life of a child somewhere :) I like this, you should see how my face just lights up thinking about this project, i am very excited and so happy to be involved.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

Fortunate

Nohana Primary School 6th Grade Syllabus

I received the Lesotho 6th grade syllabus (1998) sent by Aaron.  This will be very helpful in customizing XO exercises and material to fit with the school curriculum.  Lots of work ahead on that!

- Janissa