Edoovillage #2696 - Cameroon, Tiko: Community Relief Bilingual Nursery and Primary School COREBINAPS | COREDA

Community Relief Bilingual Nursery and Primary School (COREBINAPS) is inclusive and holistic elementary school offering quality primary education in a socially inclusive environment blended with school meals, de-worming and emotional/psychosocial support. We serve mostly orphans, vulnerable and internally displaced children. We are requesting 16lapts to integrate computer literacy and the acquisition of digital skills within the school program

2. Project Description - Please explain about your project and how you will use the laptops (*):
Background and Need
The forested communities of western Cameroon are now controlled by separatist fighters who are demanding separation from the French dominated country and would not allow any sort of schooling as a means to enforce their secession agenda. In September 2016, we started an inclusive and holistic educational program blended with emotional and psychosocial support as part of our long term strategy of meeting the educational and social needs of vulnerable and underprivileged children in our communities. In particular, we work with orphaned children and those who have been displaced by the ongoing Anglophone war. We are now running a full elementary and primary school program from nursery 1 and 2 to the 6th grade. We offer exceptional quality primary education with performance far above the national average. So far, we have successfully graduated 4 batches at the 6th grade and our current enrolment is 251. Many of our elementary school children left parents behind to relocate out of rebel-controlled areas in hopes of returning to school. They undertook dangerous journeys and now live in crowded, unsanitary, and dangerous conditions. Yet they willingly make these sacrifices because they long for an education. As one of our displaced children describes it, “Since I came to Tiko, life has not been that easy. Many times, I go to school without food and with no hope of having food when I return. This is enough reason to give up education to fend for myself. Yet, I value education more than anything else because I know it is through education that my life can be better.”

Education is unimaginable in the 21st century without computers and related technologies. The world is rapidly changing with the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). It is therefore essential to adapt education with changing trends in the global sphere to enable children irrespective of their social and economic background fit into the digital world. We believe the future is for those who are not only able to read and read but those who can adequately use ICTs adequately. This has to begin right now from the elementary level.

Project Aim
The project is aimed at integrating computer literacy and digital inclusion within our ongoing quality primary education program targeting orphans, vulnerable and internally displaced school children so that they can acquire basic computer, digital and communication skills to fit smoothly into the digital world.

Project Objectives:
• To facilitate the teaching-learning process through interactive computer educational programs;
• To enable children acquire basic computer manipulative skills;
• To enable children in our school have access to ICTs tools for their social and digital integration into the digital world;
• To enable vulnerable and disadvantaged children compete with those on the global scale.

Expected Impacts of the project
• The teaching-learning process greatly enhanced;
• The huge digital divide among orphans and needy school children narrowed;
• Pupils and students graduating from our schools able to integrate themselves smoothly into the digital world;
• Greater learning outcomes as pupils are exposed to interactive learning programs;
• Children develop independent learning abilities;
• Children more enthusiastic to manipulate and use a computer which is a rare resource in our schools and hence regular school attendance.