Youth in Action Association (YIAA) has organized a Blood Donation campaign on 29th of January 2011. The event aims to strengthen the sense of volunteering for donating blood to those in need of blood. Members from YIAA and other volunteers will donate blood and donors will register themselves for donations in the future.
Similarly, we had events like this one last year, and the year before last in Kabul, Gardez, Jalalabad and Laghman. 300+ volunteers have registered themselves in the blood donation database, developed and maintained by YIAA, and are ready to donate at any time as needed.
I had a live interview about this event on Lemar TV today. It was my first ever live TV show, in deed, it was a very good experience. I talked about the Blood Donation Campaign and other events we (YIAA) had organized in the last two years.
Youth in Action Association is working hard to strengthen the sense of responsibility in youth and their role in bringing prosperity to Afghanistan.
I came to know that “Ren’Py is a free and cross-platform visual novel engine that helps you use words, pictures, and sounds to tell stories with the computer. Its easy and efficient script language makes it possible for non-programmers to make visual novels, while its Python support allows for complex simulation games.”
After using it for a few days I think it is an excellent tool for making interactive educational activities, it is easy to learn and it is fun. The good thing is that the user has option of choosing and the activity proceeds according to the options given/chosen by the user. Voice/Video can be recorded and used in the activity.
Right now, a Household Hygiene Management Activity is being made and once the initial version is finished I am thinking of making more health related activities such as, Oral Health Care, Nutrition guide and Maternity guide. I will provide a download link for Household Hygiene Management Activity as soon as the initial version is published.
An event was organized in Washington, D.C. by OLPC. Among the guests were Senator John McCain, Afghan ambassador to the U.S and Pakistani ambassador to the U.S.
McCain said opening the flow of information and knowledge into these countries through the deployment of XO laptops would be a positive step towards stabilization. He acknowledged knowing that OLPC has had problems, but said that “this little device” is already making a big difference.
In Afghanistan 2500 laptops are deployed successfully and 2500 are on the way to be deployed. ‘Afghanistan needs 3,000,000 laptops to cover all the schools’ says the Minister of Education Mr. Farooq Wardak. The approximate cost of these laptops (including the cost of deployment) are 780 million USD, and it is said that the United States allocated a budget of 173 billion USD for the year 2009 for the war in Afghanistan.
Looking at the facts; I don’t think it is a difficult decision for the U.S. Government to take, I mean it is the best way to help Afghan education. It is simple, reasonable and very effective.
read more:
John McCain endorses OLPC to fight insurgencies
Haqqani urges US not to walk away from region again
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has commissioned impact evaluation …….
I started developing a health activity for the XO laptops long time ago, I started to write about hygiene and nutrition, and this was all I did at that time. Today the activity is far more advanced and it contains a vast amount of health information. Basically, the activity is designed for those children who are studying at the schools where the XO laptops are deployed, however, it has a good amount of information for the parents of the kids.
The activity is developed using HTML, it is really simple to access using any browser.
The children using these XO laptops are being assessed to see the impact of this activity on their life, and see whether this activity provides enough information to 1. decrease the incidence of common diseases (providing information about prevention of the diseases) 2. stop malpractices which are common around Afghanistan 3. decrease the amount of resources spent on medical facilities (provide information on how to treat some simple and common diseases at home).
The Children were assessed before they were provided with the XO laptops, they are being assessed right after they have the laptops, and they will be assessed later after they have spent some time with the laptops.
The activity can be downloaded from OLPC Afghanistan website, and the results of the assessments will be published there.
After successful deployment of 2500 laptops in 6 schools in Kabul, Herat and Jalalabad OLPC Afghanistan team is working hard to make more education, economic development and Health information content for the XO laptops. Currently the team has successfully developed health activity and economic development activity in three languages (Dari, Pashto and English). The OLPC team and other organizations supporting this project they think it was a big success, however Alanna Shaikh thinks the OLPC dream is over. In her post she says “The laptop, they promised, was the new pencil. It was going to revolutionize education in the developing world. It didn’t. The dream is over”.
Is the dream really over?
The OLPC team here thinks their hard work was not for nothing and they believe this project will be a milestone in Afghanistan’s history.
You can watch an informative video about OLPC Afghanistan here.
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