Build an eLearning Center in rural Malawi!

Here is a quick update for you regarding our eLearning Centre. 

Bonus Day

Global Giving was giving us an opportunity to campaign for fundraising, with the chance of getting our funds matched on 18 July 2019. We decided to participate in this Bonus day as we wanted to carry on fundraising to reach our final target of $10,000.

On Bonus Day, we got a generous donation from Vivartana Ventures, who shared part of their income from holding a "Crank-out" in Doha, Qatar. The "Crank-out" is a one day workshop using a unique transformational learning model for ideas and business models to develop start-ups. Vivartana was created by our Co-Founder Cyril Anand and those part of Vivartana have been Abundance's loyal supporters over the years. On Bonus day, we also received two more donations from supporters of Abundance in the UK and Singapore. Donations were matched by Global giving with us receiving $500 in matching funding. 

Thanks to all your support, we have raised $7,801 of our target of $10,000. As you know, all equipment have been purchased for the eLearning centre, including solar panels and power system, five laptops,150 keepods and refurbishment of eLearning centre room was done and it was furnished with tables, shelf, mural of donors and stools.  In addition, we had received the Rachel device and three laptops (making a total of 8 laptops now) as a donation. Three training sessions were held so far. The additional funds raised on Bonus Day will help us deploy all keepods, continue the training and allow for maintenance of equipment in future. 

Translation of learning resources

Users at the eLearning Centre had requested us to translate the learning resources into Chichewa. We put that request out as a facebook post, calling for volunteers and within minutes we had eight volunteers. We then formed an email group with the technical advisors Shift IT and the University of Massachusetts and introduced the Kolibri content to the volunteers. To start off, the volunteers are now busy translating eight children's books into Chichewa and hope to continue translations of more books and resources. The translated versions will be uploaded on to the server and at our future training sessions, they will be shared with users. We want to thank our translation volunteers and particularly, the University of Massachusetts and Shift IT for supporting us with technical knowledge on this.  

We promise to continue updating you on progress with the eLearning Centre YOU helped build at Mbando village. 

With gratitude

Deepa Pullanikkatil on behalf of The Abundance Team.