ABDF

• Project Update! (See below)
• Location: Kaluwankerny, Batticaloa, Sri Lanka
• Recipients:945 Students
• Objective:Computer lab for rural school
• Final cost:$1,166 US

For once we have a project that starts happily. Kaluwankerny is a small town about 15 km north of Batticaloa. About 4 km off the main north-south highway, the town is right on the coast and was heavily affected by the Boxing Say tsunami of 2004. Kaluwankerny Vidyalayam, the only school serving the town, was particularly hard hit, and for the next two years classes were conducted outside, under the tin roof of a series of temporary shelters. (Ok, so this part isn’t happy, but the rest is.)

In 2007, World Vision, in conjunction with Aktion Deutschland, finished a brand new two-story building on the school grounds. Now those temporary shelters are used as shade by the children at recess, not as classrooms. Part of the second floor has a large, light, airy room created with the intention of being the school’s computer lab.

The schools' new building. The computer lab is second floor, left corner.

Also in 2007, the Sri Lankan Department of Education made an in-kind donation of nine sets of new computers including printers and so on. However, this was an in-kind donation made without money for setting up and installing the computers, let alone connecting them to the internet. The school itself is in desperate financial shape; for example, the government only appropriated enough money to pay for 4 months’ worth of electricity this fiscal year. (As you read this, the students are studying with the lights out and ceiling fans off.) Thus there are no spare funds to set up the computer lab, and the computers are sitting in the room, waiting to be unpacked.

A waste of resources.

ABDF.org was asked to set up this computer lab. Our funding will allow for the purchase of computer tables and chairs, the hiring of a professional contractor (at discounted price!) to hook everything up and together and make sure everything is running properly, as well as provide the means for the computers to be connected with the internet. As we believe that recipients should help in whatever way they can, the kids will take up a collection, and with this money buy local fabrics and make curtains for the windows (the light in the room is so bright it will be impossible to see the monitors), dust covers, cushions, etc. In terms of the electricity issue, the computer lab would be the only room in which electricity would be used on a regular basis.

To make things even better, ABDF.org is delighted to tell you that for the first time in the 160 year history of the Kaluwankerny Vidyalayam, 18 students passed their O-Level exams this year (2008), about 40% of those who took them. These national exams are extremely competitive, and only by passing them can you continue on to higher education. It has taken years of patient work on the part of the teachers to achieve these results, efforts which are starting to bear fruit. ABDF.org would like to congratulate the students and teachers of Kaluwankerny Vidyalayam on their achievement.

Some Kaluwankerny students.

Thus it is even more important to ABDF.org that this project is successfully carried out; it would be our way of encouraging more and more success from the student body.

Project Update - July 7, 2008

ABDF.org is happy to announce that the official opening ceremony for the Kaluwankerny Vidlalayam’s new computer room was today, Monday the 7th of July 2008. It was held next to the newly functioning computers around 1:00 in the afternoon.

The ceremony was attended by the entire school staff, a representative group of students, as well as representatives of the local School Board, and Bennett Hinkley, ABDF.org’s Program Director in Sri Lanka.

Bennett being official.

Bennett officially handing over the computer lab to the school principal.

Bennett is happy to report that the speeches were thankfully short. In his own speech, which was translated by the school’s English teacher, he made sure that the students and staff understood that the gift of the room was not made by any government or aid agency, but rather a small group of individuals in America who feel that the future of Batticaloa District is important enough to do something about. He mentioned several names of individuals, but in particular Joanne H. Littman, who provided the bulk of the funds used.

Almost before the thank-you's were over, students and teachers swarmed to the computers and began to explore them.

Look! They work!

Bennett is further able to report that the room itself is large, cool, and very practically laid out. The students of the Vidlayalam will for the first time in the school’s history have access to the outside world in an unprecedented way, and the teachers will be able to access valuable teaching tools and information that previously had been denied them.

Afterwards the group retired to another room where a delicious lunch was served that had been prepared by some parents of students.

All in all it was a delightful simple little ceremony.

Project Update - April 12, 2009

The Program Director recently (March, 2009) visited the site of our 2008 computer lab project in Kaluwankerny. He is pleased to report that use of the lab is still in great demand. In fact, the Sri Lankan government has recently mandated that basic IT training be taught to 10th grade and O- and A-Level students (the US equivalent is 11th and 12th grades). Thus the computer lab has become the classroom for these studies. The lab has fared well, and is being very well maintained. One desktop tower needs repair, which will happen in early April 2009. The approximate cost will be 6,000 rupees, or about $54.