2006 Jan

Project PANGA MAGAE is begun, following a meeting of the Committee at Matemwe School. The intention is to raise funds in order to buy, install and operate a Classroom of 10 computers in the school.

 2006 Feb

John Rendel of http://www.peas.org.uk/  agrees to allow the Matemwe School Computer Fund  to receive donations via the internet to his UK Registered Charity.

 2006 Mar

The first online donations are received.

 2006

Donations are received. A sincere thank you is due to all of you who have made them. It should have been in person but a hard disk failure resulted in the loss of many of your email addresses. Don't worry, your money is safe!

 2006 Sept

We have printed 1000 calling cards 

http://www.matemweschool.com/page12.htm

advertising the website www.matemweschool.com, to be distributed where appropriate.

 2006 Sept

An application for funds is made to the The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A reply is received stating that their Fund does not support solely educational projects outside of the USA.

 2006 Oct

An appplication for funds is made to the George Soros Foundation. No reply received.

 2006 Oct

700  cards are left with the Headmaster of Matemwe School. The cards are taken by the School's teachers to the neighbouring hotels, Matemwe Beach Village Hotel, Mnemba, Matemwe Bungalows, and Nyota. Guests will be given the cards which advertise our website as they check out. We hope they will remember  the needs of the School Computer Fund, after their holiday on the most beautiful and dazzling beach in the world.

 2007 Jan

A year has passed and the Fund has not reached its target. Our humble apologies for that. We will redouble our efforts. We continue to believe that the target will be reached. We also believe that we must now seriously attempt to recruit a suitable IT Teacher who will supervise the installation of the computers and who will train the School's teachers to introduce the computers to the 1500 school children.

 2007 Mar

       Founded in 2002 by a 75 year old lady who first came to Nungwi as a tourist, this class now has 15 computers with 3 IT Nungwi- resident teachers who hold classes day and night on a shift basis. 4 computers at the back of the class have WiFi internet connectivity and are used by paying customers, mostly tourists. The class is part of the school and introduces computer skills to students in Form 1 and 2.The classrom generates sufficient funds of its own to prosper without any outside financial help, Government or private. We were most impressed by the way the Nungwi village parents, teachers and students have decided to defend and strengthen this amazing project and we returned more equipped to deal with the problem areas of our own Panga Magae - especially the selection of a teacher and electricity bill payment.

2007 Mar 

The Rollet family very generously donated a Compaq laptop to the Matemwe School, via the Rotary Club of Zanzibar and the Matemwe Village Beach Hotel. A presentation was made of the computer to the Headmaster.

2007 Mar 

2007 Oct

In response to a PRICE, WATERHOUSE&COOPERS Computer-For-Schools project, more than 50 Matemwe pupils wrote handwritten letters explaining why they hoped their school would win the challenge. The letters were rushed to the Zanzibar port and then conveyed in the hand of a ferry-boat sailor to Dar, just in time to beat the Company's deadline for their competition.

2007 Nov

Mr John Rendel of http://www.peas.org.uk/, the Registered UK Charity which has received your donations, telexed a transfer of USD 2067 to the School's bank account in Zanzibar. These funds will remain on account and will be used for Project PANGA MAGAE expenses, in particular to meet the IT training course costs for one of the school's teachers. We would like to thank John Rendel most sincerely for his help and we hope that our partnership will continue.

Dec 2007

The Project PANGA MAGAE has seen some progress!

In October 2007 we purchased two Dell Desktops from Stonetown Traders in Zanzibar plus modem, together with two Printer/Copier/Scanners and all the other requisite equipment needed for a small internet centre.

Unfortunately, initial surveys by both Zanzinet and Zanlink revealed that the School library site, away from the open beach, did not allow for any connectivity with the main Kiwengwa or Nungwi antennae. An iWayAfrica satellite connection was explored as a possibility but estimates suggested it would prove slow and/or expensive.

There was only one solution. We had to rise up! And so we did, to get the connection! Fundi Bw Kahindi Kadogoh and Bw Fredrick Shirima, the IT Consultant, and a team of volunteers have constructed a formidable timber tower to erect and support some powerful wireless equipment. And we now have good, fast connectivity with Zanzinet. Step one complete.

Step two was to install a LAN, also complete, and the School library is now equipped with a broadband router with sufficient cabling, sockets and switches to operate at least a-five-PC-plus-printer network.

And so to Step three. To open and operate an Internet Centre at the School.

Jan 2008 

 On 3rd January 2008, the PANGA MAGAE Project Committee held a meeting at the School.

Frederica Boswell, proxy for Tim Boswell, took the following Minutes 

The tower has been built to assist access to the
satellite server, and Fredrick Shirima, the internet
fundi, has tested the connection and shown that it is
fast and reliable. Whilst waiting for the rest of the
computers to be networked (LAN), the committee held a
meeting to discuss the way forward. Present from
Matemwe were Headmaster Hamad Khamis Haji, Assistant
Headmaster Vuai Juma Makame, teachers Mkali Pili Haji
and Khamisi, Sheha Denge, Frederica Boswell and
Stephen O'Connor. The Director of
BB's Computer School in Nungwi, Machano Haji Machu,
was also present. The Headmaster opened the meeting by
welcoming all, and then handed the floor to the
teachers who raised their concerns over the costs of
running an internet café. These questions were
directed at Machano Haji Machu whose knowledge of
running a successful internet café and computer
training centre meant that he spoke for an hour and a
half, presenting ideas for Matemwe School's future.

It was noted that the location of the school is
different from the school in Nungwi in that tourists
and other potential internet users tend to pass by in
vehicles and not on foot. It was therefore suggested
that the school work closely with local hotels to ask
them to direct customers there, and that advertising
boards and leaflets will be essential. Machano also
stressed that the school must run as both an internet
café and a training centre. Internet users will bring
in the monthly cash flow required to cover basic
costs, however the long-term viability of the centre
will rely more on a successful training centre being
established, with the hope of creating a fully
self-sustaining computer centre (as exists in Nungwi).

Nungwi School will provide a teacher to spend a month
or more at Matemwe getting the project off the ground.
Machano suggested beginning by training 4 teachers at
Matemwe School to be able to begin to teach the
students and manage the café. He believes that the
sooner the school is run and managed by the people of
Matemwe, the better.

Jan 2008 

An unsuccessful application was made to the One Laptop Per Child Project for a possible placement of their 100 Dollar Laptops in the School.

June 2008

A dinner was held in Livorno, Italy, where guests were introduced to the Project and invited to donate towards the fund. A remarkable 1000EUR was raised. Thanks to all who attended! These funds will be used to meet the future expenses of the Internet Centre, in particular for the monthly Electricity and Internet charges which the School now has to meet and for the monthly renumeration of Mwalimu Machano, our IT teacher.

Ms Sam Burton, the Project Coordinator of jamiiOLPC, makes contact and proposes a partnership.

http://jamiiolpc.wordpress.com/olpcorps-proposal/

Her proposal is part of an Africa -wide One Laptop Per Child project.

She and her team are proposing to deploy 100 XO laptops to the Matemwe School Computer Centre which will be used by 7 to 12 year old school children and which they will be allowed to take home in the evenings

Still only an application, it's no doubt premature at this stage to describe the potential significance of her proposal for Matemwe and the community. But we believe it could be a truly mould-breaking educational development. A 1000 students have their fingers crossed that her application for a partnership will be successful.

We hold our first AGM.

We open our own Bank Account and, for the first time, are in a position to receive donations direct. The following Committee Officers are signatories to the account (all of three):
Deputy Chairman: VUAI JUMA MAKAME
Treasurer          : MKALI PILI HAJI
Secretary          : FREDERICA BOSWELL

Mwalimu Machano completes the Computer course for 15 students

Mwalimu Machano begins a new course for 15 students

We welcome Mwalimu Ali Ali to the Centre

The Matemwe School Computer Centre is announcing
a new initiative.

To set up a classroom with 15 XO laptops, recharged by a solar/wind generator system, where  younger children will be able and allowed to explore their world.

We have bought the first 3 XOs on eBay and hope
these will be the nuclei.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We support all the OLPC core principles.

child ownership
low ages
saturation
connectivity
free and open source

But, the first, giving each child a laptop to own, is not within our power. We only wish it was. Meanwhile,
we must do what we can to get these very powerful
educational tools into the hands of our young students.
 
In order to raise the requisite funds to implement this initiative, we will soon be posting the details of a child sponsorship programme.