We are continuing with our project to supply each Tuition Center with a laptop that teachers can use to introduce children to computers. Poonjeri is the sixth out of the eight Centers which now have a laptop, all of which have been donated from friends who bought a new one.
The Mettu Street is one of the four Poonjeri Centers welcoming children from the dalit area of the village. These are mainly younger children from first to fifth grade, even though occasional older children from the surrounding re still allowed in.
Suganya, one of our ex students, teaches here. She is a very poor girl whom we supported in her studies for three years with a scholarship. She is studying for a bachelor’s degree in business studies. She now attends the second year of the two year integration correspondence course to earn her.
Our Tuition Centers teach computer science (if we want to call it that, with a touch of optimism!) on Saturdays, the day of the week dedicated to recreational activities, game playing and creativity (singing, dancing, drawing). Teachers can however decide independently for their classes how much time to set apart for computer studies; this depends on their own experience levels, unfortunately often quite limited. But all these children have never even seen a computer in their lives and often don’t even know what one is, so for the time being our teachers’ knowledge is enough.
We are considering the possibility of planning a computer course for our teachers and a small computer school for our older students in the near future.
And please, if you have any used desktop computers or laptops to give away, please let us know!
