YouMeWe Language in the cloud-Philippines

We are having great improvements in one of our computer labs located in Ghana, 5 of our students have achieved 10,000 words on NightZookeeper!

Victor is having online calls on weekly basis with the computer lab in Ghana, all the students are writing on NightZookeeper every day and they are also practing reading and pronunciation on the Zoom calls with Victor. 

We recently bought backpacks and dictionaries as rewards for the students, and we plan to continue these reading calls and in the future start doing the commonsense training with the students.

With the global pandemic shutting down JOEE's planned fundraisers, we have turned to an online option. No more meeting with potential donors at luncheons or evening events. No more lively family concerts in close quarters with puppets, guitars and harmonicas adding to the celebration... at least for now. We are making our appeal through the digital and social media lines of communication.

Here's what JOEE has been doing: Continuing to bring English lessons to kids at St. Francisco Children's Home in Ota-ku. Lessons must be given via Skype, but the enthusiasm of the little ones has not dropped off. When the lessons start they run into the room and head straight for the video screen, shouting "Hello!" and "How are you?" They love to have the puppets talk directly to them through the camera, and are eager to step up close to the screen to practice their English.

One of their favorite games lately, has been a rapid, number-flash-card exercise. They are learning their numbers in English and try to be the first one to call out the correct name in English. They also enjoy the slly hat game as they name colors of hats pulled out of a bag and worn by puppets and instructor. Learning English is fun! This is one of our main goals: to show that learning is a fun and exciting adventure. Thank you for helping to make this ministry of JOEE possible!

We are looking to do MangoJam coding in the fall in the Philippines teaching the kids to do coding with $15.00 motherboards. We will be doing this at the Boracay Global Academy and the public schools.

We plan to increase the number of computers and buy a new modem for the computer lab as there was some reshuffling after the typhoon at Christmas and the power cables were separated from the laptops.

We currently have children using both the NightZooKeeper mission accounts and NightZooKeeper writing program.

In many cases the children have never been on a computer before so they are getting familiar with not only using the keyboard and the position of the letters on the keyboard but also the functionality.

Some kids have excelled passed the 30 lessons and others are pacing themselves along with Digital Citizenship lessons.

We created the Language in the cloud project in order to connect the children in the homes in Japan with children outside of Japan. Giving them a fun and curious way of interacting with each other.

The other reality about the children living in the homes in Japan is that they are multi-cultural and so we do not want them to think of themselves as "half" but rather DOUBLE. Double the cultures, double the person.

By giving them not only access to the internet but having class blogs to share, the children have a medium to be able to express themselves in writing utilizing the NightZooKeeper writing software or Missions for the younger kids.

There are contests and orbs to be won for the more words that they write.

Thanks to your contribution, we are able to place more computers in homes and connect the kids with more children overseas.

Thank you.

Here at You Me We "Connectedness" is one of our core pillars. To prove it, we have distributed over 70 computers, and we have expanded to more homes. 

At this point we have distributed 450 computers to over 10 homes. It is not simply a physical donation, but it is also our volunteers and staff continuously visiting the homes to teach digital, and language skills. We know that this continuous support is so important for the kids. 

These gifts of technology has allowed us to combine the NightZooKeeper curriculum with the Digital Citizenship curriculum in order to make the program more dynamic and impactful. 

We are also providing NZK Missions. (An easier version of the English teaching tool that has many games.) Which has helped us to engage more young students, in order to grow their English abilities.

And through these digital resource our students are able to connect with other children all over the world.

• Throu NZK they are able to see what children are writing in the Philippines and Europe.
• We have also conducted video calls for the children to interact with our associated teachers and students in Ghana

Moving forward:

We will continue to create digital classrooms here in Japan, and we are planning to connect the kids with children in even more countries. (Like: Indonesia, India, etc)

Links:

• You Me We website