Ethiopia, Hawassa: Inside Travel Yirgalem

Inside Travel is a social enterprise (currently still an association), which offer tourists authentic experiences and direct contact with the local population and supports communities by generating income. We are currently setting up a new destination in Yirgalem in Ethiopia, which is one of the coffee producing areas in Ethiopia. In order to support not only the people, which we directly work with, we always try to establish connections with schools or other community based organisations.

In Yirgalem, we will have the opportunity to cooperate with the ICT department (School of Informatics) of the nearby Hawassa University. Instructors from there will be used to train the school teachers and follow-up the project as needed. The school can handle this activity as part of the University’s community service activities, as it has done with high schools in the last three years.

Ethiopian educational system starts ICT skill courses in grade 9 (i.e., in high-schools). However, private schools in towns and cities include ICT subject starting KGs even if there is no standardized curriculum. Some town and city public schools are also providing computer pools for students. This is found to cause rural-urban digital divide within the same localities. From the university side, this project serves as a pilot to see how well students can develop their ICT skill without formal ICT teacher support and assistaces.

We would like to start with two schools, where there already is electricity. If this pilot-project turns out to be successful, we would like to expand our activities to other rural schools, where we plan to use income generated through tourism and other funds from donors to provide basic solar kits to charge the laptops during the day.

Ganne and Gadiya Elementary schools (grade 1 – 8) / www.insidetravel.ch / ICT Literacy for Ganne and Gadiya Elementary schools, Yirgalem vicinity areas, Dale District of Sidama, Ethiopia.