Equip Mobile Learning Lab for 450 Vietnam orphans

We are pleased to announce that our new "mobile computer lab" is off to a great start. Thanks to you and the generosity of 52 donors who gave to support this project, more than $5,700 was raised to help us get started in funding 2 mobile computer labs. Thank you!

We kicked off our mobile computer lab with a 10-week concept pilot in 2 orphanages in Hau Giang Province, Vietnam, for 46 orphan children. This is a dusty and remote location about 45 minutes outside of Can Tho, Vietnam, on the heavily traveled highway between Can Tho and Soc Trang. The orphanages do a good job of providing for the basic needs of the children, but the children were not receiving any type of education on computers or connected to the internet. Already living in a remote and isolated orphanage location, Orphan Impact jumped at the chance to bring our program into these orphanages, using computers and internet to connect these children to a world of learning.

Led by Teacher Ngoc, 46 children are now receiving weekly computer classes designed to teach them basic computing skills, and also to generate excitment about learning and motivation to look towards their future with excitement and a sense of hope. Behind the scenes, Teacher Ngoc and Mr. Ba, spent time before and after each class safely packing up all the computer lab classroom equipment for transport between the two orphanages, allowing us to save nearly $5,000 in expense that is usually allocated for setting up the computer lab in each new orphanage.

We would consider this a success if the concept were only used in 2 orphanages. But this was just the small sample size we used during our pilot phase in Hau Giang Province. Beginning in August, we will be expanding each mobile computer lab to be shared among 5 orphanages.

After 5 years of experience gained in delivering computer and internet classes to children in orphanages all throughout Vietnam, one of our key realizations has been that our computers were being underutilized. As an extracurricular program, it is common for our classes to be taught on evenings or weekends and for our computer labs to only be used 1 time per week in each orphanage. For a project that is always trying to slim the budget and keep expenses to a minimum, it was becoming frustrating to see the computers only used one time per week when so many hundreds and thousands of orphan children throughout the country could be benefiting from participation in our program.

We are very excited for the continuation of this project expansion as we begin to rely more heavily on the moble computer lab concept to share equipment among orphanages, increasing the numbers of children who can participate. As the project continues over the 6+ remaining months of 2015, we will keep you posted with additional project reports.

This project still has $473 to raise before it will be fully funded. To make an additional contribution, or to share the project with friends or family who may be interested in supporting this project, please visit the following link: http://goo.gl/g2vSIs