October November Newsletter
General News
Computer Studies Lesson Plans
Meaningful Volunteer has released a series of lesson plans designed for students in developing countries. These lesson plans assume no knowledge of computers at all, and use resources that are readily available in developing countries. No video projector - for example - is assumed.
This lesson plans under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. This means that they are free to use for noncommercial entities as long as they attribute Meaningful Volunteer as the source.
At the moment, we have the Introduction to Computers course. The course comes complete with teacher notes, students' notes, flashcards, and downloadable in-class resources.
Further courses will be added in the future.
As per the Creative Commons license, these lesson plans are free to use for the betterment if humankind.
Ugandan News
RYE School Classes Up and Going in Uganda
After many trials and tribulations (including the ongoing saga of failing to get electricity for six weeks...), the RYE School classes are up and going in Uganda!
We have a literacy class for ten-year old children (all who at present can't read a single letter), an adult literacy class and a computer studies class that make use of the newly released computer study lesson plans.
Numerous studies have shown that a full stomach is one of the most critical factors in a good education. You just can't learn when you're hungry. With this in mind, all of the RYE School classes begin with a nutrious snack.
Exciting the Community
On the 3rd of December 2009, Meaningful Volunteer organized a community meeting for the residents of Buyaya. It was widely advertised in the parish and 146 residents attended.
During the meeting - Malcolm Trevena (founder of Meaningful Volunteer) - outlined the plans that Meaningful Volunteer has for the community. He talked about the English literacy programs, the computer programs, the livelihood programs, the water bore-hole initiatives, the plans for building a school/orphanage, and a lot more.
The community responded very positively and asked numerous questions.
The English and computer programs are set to launch on the 14th of December.
 Census Completed
A critical part of empowering a community is to know as much as you can about the community.
With this is mind, Meaningful Volunteer conducted a census for every house in the targeted parish of Buyaya in the province of Sironko. 238 households were surveyed. In addition, Meaningful Volunteer carried out an educational survey of 332 people.
The educational survey serves two purposes:
- Allows us to gage educational levels and target students to join our literacy and computer programs
- Provides a control group.
Every student that joins our literacy program will take the same educational survey. In twelve months time or so, we will conduct a similar educational survey. We will them compare students who are part of our program with students who are not part of our program. If the students in our programs are doing significantly better than those who are not, then we know that we are doing something right.
The results of the census can be downloaded from here.
Selected highlights from the census and educational surveys include:
- Uganda has two educational policies called UPE and USE. These stand for Universal Primary Education and Universal Secondary Education respectively. These - in theory - guarantee all children a primary and secondary education.
This appears to be working in Buyaya at the primary level (with 393 students enrolled), but not at the secondary level (with 54 students enrolled).
- Most students under nine cannot read a single letter.
- Most students under fifteen struggle to read simple triplet words. (Triplet words have a consonant, then a vowel, then another consonant. Words like cat, dog, man and tap are all triplets).
- The reading levels further deteriorate when silent-e words (cape, Kate, Dave, cute and so on) and consonant blend words (blue, king, snow, gloves and so on) are added.
- The students who could read still performed very poorly on English comprehension tests.
- The average age for males in 19.5, and the average age for females is 20.5.
- Malaria accounted for 53% of all deaths and HIV accounted for 15% of all deaths.
- There is an average of 4.9 residents per household
- Chickens (4.18/household) and goats (1.18/household) form the bulk of livestock.
- Almost all residents are sustenance farmers with beans, maize, and cassava forming the bulk of the crops.
- 35% of residents farm coffee as a cash crop.
- Residents spend an average of 1 hour and 49 minutes collecting water from the sole bore-hole well, and 1 hour and 27 minutes from the various wells around the parish.
- 11% of children are orphans
- HIV rates are hard to determine because of the stigma of associated with HIV+ people.
District Manager of Uganda Announced
In its ongoing campaign to empower local people around the world, Meaningful Volunteer is delighted to announce the appointment of Scarlet Nabwire Waduwa as the new district manager of Uganda.
Scarlet joins Eden Navia (of the Philippines) as international district managers.
Generator Donated
The Ugandan branch of Meaningful Volunteer has been fighting a seemingly unending power problems now for four weeks. As a result, many of our programs have been stalled and unable to get going.
Two lovely ladies - one in Korea (via way of the States) and one in Canada - should great generosity and purchased a petrol generator for Meaningful Volunteer in Uganda.
All the staff and volunteers in Uganda are very grateful to these kind women as it allows us to get our programs underway and have a real and meaningful impact on the community.
Also check out a new Meaningful Blog Entry: Electricity Woes.
Filipino News
Videos Released
We now have a series of videos available for our program in the Philippines. Check them out here:
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