Bridging the Technology Gap in Kenya and Denver

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for all of your support; we are very grateful for your generosity! Because of your contributions, we reached our goal of $3000 and 30 donors with our December Global Giving campaign and our cultural exchange project is underway! The dancers from Kaaga girls high school and Kaaga primary school, the participants from HOPE Online Learning Academy, and the mentors from Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Youth Ensemble have all been selected and will soon start practicing their dance choreography. 

We have three technical issues we are working on.  First, we are installing and networking computers at Kaaga primary school and are waiting for the final quote from the ISP provider, Safaricom, before connecting to the internet.  We should be ready to go in one to two weeks. Second, the internet connection at Kaaga girls high school is being upgraded to allow for faster speed which is required by  web conference platforms. Third, we are investigating two web conference platforms to determine which has the best fit for our Kenyan partners.

The other part of our program is a pen pal exchange between our Kenyan participants and our U.S. participants.  We have created topics and questions for them to start discussing and are waiting for a complete list of email addresses from all participants. Once we have all the emails, the students will be corresponding online, at least once a week, with their pen pal partners.

All the participants are very excited and eager to get going, thanks to you, our friends and supporters!! Thank you again for your continued support and investment in Technology Partnership and we look forward to bringing you updates as the project progresses. 

With gratitude,

Barb Bates and the cultural exchange team