Edoovillage #1193 - Dominican Republic, Santa Barbara de Samana: Mama Elba School | Fundación Aldeas de Paz Cooperation | aldeasdepaz.org

In 2016, Aldeas de Paz started a free computer course project for people not knowing anything about the internet, writing mails or using a PC yet.

This course is for total beginners and open and free for everyone willing to educate oneself. It aims at giving participants an understanding for technology and showing possibilities they wouldn't be able to see otherwise.

Only 4 of the 8 PCs we bought in the beginning are still working. With the high number of interested people in the course, a further cooperation with labdoo.org for PCs is still valuable for the project.

The interest in the classes rose so high that we had to split the class in a beginner and advanced group.
We additionally have a waiting list with 20 students for the beginner class.

Every group had two lessons a week and each lesson lasted for two hours. Most of the people have slim to no knowledge about interacting with computer systems. We invested much effort in this project because it is a service for people to learn job relevant computer and multimedia skills for free.
The ultimate aim for the participants is to achieve a certificate which can be used for job interviews.

In the computer class we teach basic knowledge that is needed to gain job relevant skills which include: using office software, creating a mail account and sending messages, as well as using the internet for research.

Additionally, the Mamá Elba school with 20-30 children with special needs and would like to use the preinstalled learning software on the laptops during their classes from 2PM to 6PM from Monday to Thursday. The Dominican teacher Elizabeth and the Spanish teacher Jessica will supervise the use of the computers during lessons.

The volunteers conduct weekly meetings in which the topics and tasks for the next week are planned.
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