Digital Literacy: IT for Street Children

We are just $1,100 short of meeting our goal of raising $50,000 for our project Digital Literacy: IT for Street Children. We are so grateful for your support in providing the technology and training for our teachers and students.  Your donations are helping to close the digital divide and provide our students with skills that will serve them in their education and vocations going forward.

Our twice weekly classes will be coming to a close in December for our girls that joined MindLeaps in 2017. The students learned hardware and software skills, and learned specifics on several programs that are important for success in their academic and professional lives.  What are some of the topics and skills that our youth are learning? A recent class focused on helping the kids learn how to use Microsoft Word. Here is an example of the lesson plan:

-Setting the default folders

-Using the Quick Access Toolbar

-Using ribbons and tabs

-Using the Mini Toolbar

-Using dialog box launchers

-Using contextual tabs

-Using the help resource

-Exiting Word

Two dancers from New York, Chase Johnsey and Carlos Renedo, visited MindLeaps Rwanda over the summer and were so engaged with MindLeaps program that they returned again in October!  The kids were excited to welcome them back and show them what they had learned in their IT classes.

In 2018, we will welcome a new cohort, and to start the year off right, the MindLeaps Center in Rwanda is looking for laptops for our IT program.  Your used laptop will make a big difference to our kids in Rwanda! If you have any type of computer (except for Apple) that you are no longer using, please consider donating it to MindLeaps. You can contact us at info@mindleaps.org for more details.

We have almost reached our goal of raising $50,000 for our project Digital Literacy: IT for Street Children. Your support has provided laptops, cables, printers and other computer supplies, thousands of hours of IT classes for our students, and helped developed curricula and provided training for our teachers. Thank you for making an enormous difference in our students' lives.

Our twice weekly classes are now in their eighth month for our new girls attending MindLeaps in 2017.  While the IT classroom is an important space for students to learn basic hardware and software skills, it is also a space where they can fully take advantage of all the incredible resources that digital media and the internet offer. For example, our students are practicing their English Language as well as their typing skills in Pen Pal exchanges. MindLeaps students were matched with students enrolled in Deception Bay State High School in Australia to send each other emails. In addition, the IT classroom was an opportunity for MindLeaps students to support their fellow classmates and used as a screening space to see their friends perform at the Ubumuntu Arts Festival in Kigali (photo above).

Our 2016 graduates, who are now enrolled in formal schooling, have completed their second terms and are continuing to succeed in their academic and IT classes. MindLeaps Rwanda staff and volunteers recently visited the schools (photo below), and our students were eager to show off their skills -- though admittedly more excited to show off their dance moves than their Excel formulas! You can view a video online here: https://vimeo.com/228085048

Thank you again for helping provide digital literacy to our students in Rwanda. Your support is giving them the needed skills to be successful in their future careers and help themselves and their families out of poverty.