A long overdue update......

A long long time ago there was an email sent around to friends of a young (at heart) girl who, fresh from her years travel, decided to let everyone know she was still alive by asking for money. You may remember this money was not to help prop her up as she came back to NZ with just her backpack, but in fact a request to help the small community in which she had worked with in the Colombian Jungle (see 'older post' below if you need to jog your memory as to what you contributed to!). The idea was, that by asking friends for donations of whatever they could spare, they could in some corner of the world, make a difference.

Well I am very happy to let you know, that you have in fact made a difference. Whilst this girl regrets it has taken this long to get this update out to you kind and generous people (who perhaps secretly were thinking she had run away with the cash), there are a few viable reasons for the delay in doing so. These namely being the difficulties encountered with the logistics involved in working from a desk in Wellington, NZ to organising the purchase of a computer in Colombia to the then safe delivery of this plus other educational resources, to an area with no cellphone coverage, email, or transport that has any other power other than two or four legs. These reasons also being why it has taken this long to get images back as proof that it did actually get there!

So huge apologies for the delay in sending out this communication but I (as I get tired of speaking in the third person) had lunch with a friend a few weeks ago who was able to hand me footage of her visiting the school a few months ago.

I hereby can provide a list of all the items that were brought with the money you donated and also below some other good news....so keep on reading if you can....

Items sent to Escuela Teyuna:

• 1 x Dell Inspiron Intel Dual-Core T4500 2.3GHZ 17in Laptop Computer (2GB/250GB) @ 2.3GHz,DVD Burner, Windows 7, 4 cell battery, Integrated webcam, (purchased online via Exito in Santa Marta, Colombia)





• 1 x extra keyboard (to allow for wear and tear of the original laptop keyboard from 20 boisterous kids!)


• 1 x set of USB speakers
  
• 1 x mouse
  
• 2 x 1GB USB
  
• 1 x waterproof laptop bag
  
• 1 x Microsoft Office Package including Word, Excel and Powerpoint
  
• 1 x 'Learn to read with Pipo' CD-Rom for ages 4 to 8
  
• 1 x 'Memory and Logic' CD-Rom for ages 5 to 9
  
• 1 x 'Maths' CD-Rom for ages 5 to 8
  
• 1 x 'Thinking' CD-Rom for ages 5 to 9
  
• 1 x 'Play and think' CD-Rom
  
• 1 x 'Letters and numbers' CD-Rom for ages 4 to 7
  
• 1 x 'Adding and Subtracting' CD-Rom for ages 6+
  
• 1 x 'The Planet Earth with Pipo' CD-Rom
  
• 1 x 'The Little Explorers in the Ciudad Perdida'
  
• 1 x BBC Muzzy English Language Course I - Vocabulary DVDs Parts 1 & 2, and Story DVDs Parts 1 to 6
  
• 1 x BBC Muzzy English Language Course II - Vocabulary DVDs Parts 1 & 2, and Story DVDs Parts 1 to 6
• A variety of school items such as English/Spanish Dictionary, Times table charts, compasses, writing materials etc etc.

I am delighted to say that these items (with the exception of the laptop which was purchased using online credit I was able to organise from here and which was picked up in Colombia), were safely packed up by DHL here in Wellington and arrived in Santa Marta a few days later. They were then delivered to the school by way of being transported by mini-bus for two hours, then transferred to the back of a motorbike for an hour and a half and then strapped to the back of a mule for another four hours. It safely arrived to the community who were naturally over the moon to receive its surprise and more to the point come to the realisation that people in countries all around the world cared about their education.

For the next couple of months this laptop was charged at a nearby farm at the end of each school day and then transported back up to the school for use each morning. I only have one photo of good enough quality to show you of the laptop being used by some of the kids plus some backpackers who decided to jump in the back of the shot.

If you focus on the back of the room, just to the right of the door you will notice the poster I made of a collage of all the faces of the people who donated to this cause. A number of backpackers often pop their heads into this classroom as they trek back from the 'Lost City' and in fact one person who saw this poster then decided to stay on and teach English, just as I did, for several weeks. The aim of this poster was not only for the kids to be able to see the kind faces of those who donated, but also promote the fact that anyone's time and/or resources to furthering the education of these kids is always welcome. So far it seems to be working!

This reads:

This laptop computer and educational resources have been donated to the 'Nueva Teyuna' School by my friends you see in this poster. Our wish is that this donation be used to further the education of all students at this school. Enjoy! Stephanie

And here comes the even better news........

The community really was astounded by the generosity of these people that did not know them and probably would not ever get the chance to. The neighbouring village, where I had also volunteered taking English classes with some of the kids and also some adults who had lost their homes due to the violence experienced at the hands of the Paramilitary, was equally impressed. This school has a lot more help from the Government (due to it's slightly closer proximity to better infrastructure) and had received help a few years earlier with electricity, computers and the internet.

The teacher who I had helped out by volunteering my time there, took it upon herself to help our little project a little further and found four more desktop computers that would be donated to the school. These however, were of no use with no electicity in the vicinity so with some of the money received through your donations we were able to build a pretty simple energy plant up at the school which powers the computers for two hours each day. Our little project of one laptop has now grown to include four others!

Please click on the video below to see them in action. This was taken during the weekend so there were only a handful of kids there. The CD-roms have proved to be a great hit and they are learning interactively how to do sums, read in Spanish and English, improve their listening, memory and logic skills, not to mention their computer literacy has improved ten-fold. So in a matter of days their classroom learning had gone from copying from a blackboard to a piece of paper in pencil to writing up stories with Microsoft Word, using clip-art to illustrate their stories and saving them to a USB key!

I spoke with the teacher last week and he asked me to personally say 'MUCHAS GRACIAS' for all your kind donations and for helping these kids have a little more of a step up in life.

Feel free to feel good for making a difference!

Merry Christmas everyone and may you have a very happy and healthy 2011.

Love from Steph xxx