On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I donated Rs.50,000 towards my school fund (in memory of my mother). 4 > poor and deserving students receive �1000 each every year plus Rs.200 > towards school's administrative cost in connection with my scholarship. > > If one wishes to announce with message to others and if one can afford > it then I would say go for it, or else, cut it short and use the savings > on charities or good cause. > > Finally, many shools etc in Goa have such scholarships > and not just Aldona.
Joe, Also please look at the possiblity of building community-assets at the school level. In terms of offering access to useful readering material (US$100 invested per year can get a school 20-25 magazines every month, for 12 months... this has been implemented in a handful of schools fairly successfully, waiting to be replicated). Any individual can play the role of a 'godfather' to ensure that a schools gets access to computer hardware, useful and relevant (often 'free') software, and ideas of how best to deploy computers as an aid to excite a child's mind to venture into wider horizons. Given that these efforts are already half-done, and are being pushed (though haphazadly) in Goa currently, it's not a very difficult thing to do. There already are a number of persons within Goa grappling with the issue of how best computers can offer our kids (read all kids, not just the priviledged ones) wider horizons, and make them more competitive to take on the future. One model that works is to reach out *directly* to a school of your choice. Your village school, alma mater, or whatever. That way you know where exactly the money is going, how effectively it is being used, and you can also play a role in pushing ahead the deployment at the school level. This is a goal individuals on Goanet have been pushing for some years now. A whole range of people -- Daryl Martyris, Emmanuel D'Silva, Boogie Viegas, the Online team, Ashley Delaney, Tom Fernandes from Germany, Dave Futers & Jude Miranda, Goa Sudharop, Mario Mascarenhas, Anit Saxena, Sangeeta, Shruti, volunteers of the Linux Users' Group, Alwyn & Lisa Noronha, Prof Gurunandan Bhat, and others whom I've forgotten to name -- have been promoting this idea. Many Goans across the globe have supported this idea. Earlier, the focus was on getting hardware into the schools. Though some schools still need this, the focus has changed. There was a lull during a spell, but the project is again picking up steam, thanks to the initiatives of Daryl, Alwyn/Lisa, Shruti, Ashley and others. One meeting was just held earlier this week. Presentations at the Exhibition of Computers and Allied Products by Shruti helped to build a whole lot of awareness about the potential of Free Software in education (many resources exist, but it requires some time and work to catalogue and appreciate). We need to look ahead to identify those 'pressure points' which would make a real difference to the perceived utility of computers in schools. As a tool not just for education, but for office administration. Mario Alvares of Goenkar.com with support from Goacom.com is working -- together with Arvind Yadav -- on a simple database which would allow some 20 schools initially to have their own websites, easily update these, see the sites of some other schools in the state and be able to access all these sites offline! Let's not lose track of this good initiative. Just because it's not being written about, please don't think nothing is happening. (The real people, doing the real work, unlike me, have real pressures... and spend time solving problems rather than writing!) IT specialists out there, even you can help. One hour a month or a week, would probably help bring everyone at least a step close to the solution. Best of all, we're trying to share our ideas and solutions statewide, and rope in many more volunteers and 'godfathers' for individual schools here, so that knowledge-sharing can help us solve our problems faster, and deploy computers more efficiently. FN -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India * fred at bytesforall.org * Ph 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 * Writing with a difference on what makes the difference... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post to Goa's first-ever Usenet newsgroup: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To read it, search for 'soc.culture.india.goa' on http://groups.google.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
