Hi Marlene, Thank you so much for your offer: it doesn't drive me mad, on the contrary - but maybe a project in a Swiss psychiatric hospital is not really within the agenda of potentialafrica.com?
After all, Switzerland is a rich country and should be able to finance a less DIY version of that project. In fact some cantons here are pretty good at that: Vaud has the Joker project <http://www.joker-vd.ch/>, which was very much in my mind when I started showing folks how to use a computer at the hospital. It's just that a) I'm not good at fundraising; b) Ticino, where that hospital is, still has a far more IT-illiterate cantonal administration than Vaud; c) psychiatrical hospitals have grounded reasons for being wary of the use patients might make of IT, and in this case, quite a few less grounded fears. For instance, when S., a young translator, who was hospitalized for painkillers abuse due to the consequences of a bad car accident, asked me to help her make a digital CV, at first, the nurses in her section of the hospital were very suspicious. Then on the day I decided to tell them I was ready to fully undress for inspection before the lesson with S., they had just decided I could be trusted and they let us work in her room, unsupervised. In the section I was in, it was a bit easier because there are no patients with substance abuse problems there. So the staff soon accepted and encouraged the idea of letting people get the hang of computers. Even the therapy director of the hospital was quite favorable, after a while. But still, the hierarchical structure is complex and heavy - and I should first find the right people who could OK such a project - and the fundraising for it. Best Claude On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 10:44 AM, Marlene Bramley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi there Claude > > I think your example of a "telecentre" is fantastic, it is very important > that people are exposed to technology through a person that is informed, > gentle and passionate as you seem to be. Now my job would be to find you, > give you the funding you need to continue this good work and to supply you > with software and hardware that might help you train thousands of people > consistently (well if the thought of it does not drive you mad :) > > Kind regards > Marlene > > _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
