By Anna Bunce | Africa SOMA Board Member
It is with your help that Africa SOMA continues to move ever closer to opening the computer lab in the Elangata Wuas Resource Centre. We hope to be writing to you about the lab's grand opening in our next newsletter! Community members in Elangata Wuas are very excited to gain access to all the opportunities that basic computer skills and internet access make available to rural residents. Recently a Elangata Wuas community member expressed his gratitude for Africa SOMA's work on our Facebook wall. While visiting a internet cafe in Nairobi he wrote, "You've positively changed lives of thousands of families in E-Wuas. Thank and may God bless always."
As mentioned in our last newsletter, the community based organization which runs the resource center has hired Isaac Leken Kakeni to be the Elangata Wuas Resource Centre Computer Lab Manager. He continues to settle into the position and is providing many innovative ideas on how to make the lab most useful to the community. Additionally Jeremiah, our newest librarian, brings excellent accounting skills to the Resource Centre's team which have been useful as we budget to determine the ongoing needs of the computer lab. Africa SOMA has also recently accepted two new interns who are planning to work with the community to develop interesting and accessible programming within the Computer Lab so that everyone is able to make the most the new computers have to offer.
The Resource Centre has now been outfitted with solar panels to charge the MSI x-slim laptops that have arrived. Each of the centres three librarians and Isaac have learned how to properly care for the solar panel system; refilling the battery will pure water when needed and ensuring they leave one light on each night to drain the battery so it will be ready to recharge the next day. Quite a different way of thinking to many of us who grew up without solar power being reminded to "turn off the light!".
Outside of our work on the computer lab, Africa SOMA continues to provide high school scholarships to Elangata Wuas students of outstanding academic achievement, send interns to volunteer teach in short staffed local schools in the area, and continue to work with the community to support and further develop programming in the Elganata Wuas Library and Resource Center. We ask you to please let your friends and family know about our project. We are still seeking support for the internet subscription, additional furniture which will be required to support the lab and maintaining Isaac, our Computer Lab Manager's salary. As always, feel free to email us with any questions or thoughts you might have at infor@africasoma.org. Additionally you can always post on our Global Giving project page wall with your thoughts. We look forward to sharing our continued progress with you.
With gratitude and on behalf of the Elangata Wuas Community,
Anna Bunce,
Africa SOMA Board Member
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