By Anna Bunce | Africa SOMA Board Member - Fundraising Officer
Thanks to your donation the computer lab in the Elangata Wuas Library and Resource Centre is continuing to grow. Isaac Kakeni, our enthusiastic computer lab manager continues to teach daily computer classes to a variety of community members in the area. Isaac has had numerous community members come in for basic typing lessons and is enjoying watching his students, young and old alike, flourish. Four Elangata Wuas youth, Ezekiel, Stanley, Milton, and Antony, have been working particularily hard with Isaac on more advanced computing topics. These young men see computer skills as a key part of increasing their employability and increasing their income potential.
Unfortunately, one of the computers recently suffered a malfunction and had to be fixed. Isaac was able to do this but this speaks to the computer lab's continued need for financial support. The size of Isaac's classes are restricted by the small number of computers available and losing one to a malfunction only reduced how many people were able to use the computers.
With the success of the computer lab, it is important to reflect on the limited access to computers the Elangata Wuas community had before the lab opened its doors. Prior to the computer lab's opening, any Elangata Wuas community members who wanted to use a computer or were interested in learning how to use one had to travel to the larger nearby community of Kajiado. This trip takes at least an hour by matatu (the local name for privately owned buses in the region) and costs about 1000 Kenyan Shillings (the equivalent of $12 in US currency) for the roundtrip. With such a significant barrier in terms of time and money, few people in the area were able to use computers. Now the lab is only a three minute walk from the centre of Elangata Wuas, a walk of five minutes or less from 2 of the 7 local elementary schools and the regions only high school. In a world growing more and more connected by the internet, we at Africa SOMA cannot thank you enough for helping in the move to make all the information of the internet available to the Elangata Wuas community.
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On behalf of Africa SOMA and the Elangata Wuas Community, thank you again for your donation!
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