November 13, 2005
Embangweni #31
Dear Friends and Family,
This will be our last email from Embangweni, as I am due to fly
out of Lilongwe tomorrow afternoon. However, many of you have
been donating regularly, faithfully and generously to the special
ECO account that has been supporting our computer work here at
Embangweni for the past two and one half years, and it seems we
are long overdue in giving you a report on what your money has
accomplished.
For starters, we should clarify that this fund was originally
established for two purposes: (1) for the development and support
of computer use and education here in northern Malawi and (2)
to explore ways of expanding the support base and to promote broader
area-wide approaches to common problems in eastern and southern
Africa. Although the second purpose has never flowered into quite
the program we had envisioned, you will see that some of the funds
have been applied to small efforts in that direction.
Secondly, as an overall assessment, the relatively small group
whose donations have made all of this possible should know that
their efforts have been awesome and stunning beyond anything we
could have reasonably expected at the outset. Here are some of
the facts and figures to support that statement:
- A total of more than $30,000 has been contributed to this
fund in the two years it has existed! That, alone, is miraculous,
considering some of the initial skepticism about “inappropriate
technology” and the small number of regular donors.
- In general terms, about $4,000 of this has been spent or is
in process of being spent on training (three quarters to train
a highly qualified Malawian technician who can sustain the repair
and maintenance of the network now in place); about $4,000 on
“spares and repairs”; about $4,000 on transportation
of equipment and setting up of the network; and about $5,000
on the communications and outreach mentioned above as the second
of the two targeted activities for the fund.
- The remaining $13,000 has been put into a kind of escrow account
which will be drawn down over the next (approximately) five
years to pay for a continued supply of spare replacement parts,
maintenance, and repairs. A committee has been set up to manage
this and it has been agreed that some of the fund may also be
used to continue the training efforts.
For those who may not be aware of all the details of Embangweni’s
computerization, we have received two donations of 50 computers
each from schools in the northern Virginia area that were upgrading
their computer labs and offered some of their still-working cast-offs
to us for the cost of shipping them to Malawi. With these and
other donated computers that have arrived in smaller lots over
time, Embangweni now has a total of approximately 120 computers
on station. Loudon Full Primary School has a computer room of
30. Each of the two secondary schools has a computer room with
about 25, and the deaf school has a smaller computer lab with
13 computers. The balance are spread around among the Station
Office, Loudon Projects, the guest house, and, of course, the
hospital, where most of the administration offices, the stores,
pharmacy, lab, OPD and at least two of the wards have computers
networked together in a LAN that allows exchange of data and messages
and allows access to email through a unique “Winlink”
system manned by a group of dedicated amateur radio operators
who provide the crucial link between our “ham” radio
at the LAN server and the outside Internet world. In this area,
your funds have been spent to lay down a system of buried cables
in plastic pipes between and among the various buildings in the
hospital and from there outward to include the Station Office,
the guest house, and the primary school.
Aside from the senior technician now trained and in place, the
funded training activities have focused on teaching basic word
processing and the use of spreadsheets to a growing cadre of teachers
and staff in the hospital, the two primary schools, and the two
secondary schools here at Loudon Station. And that does not even
count the hundreds of school children who are now being exposed
to computer use in their regular classroom experience.
At the primary school level, the children are taught basic navigation
through the computer windows and they spend hours at various educational
computer games that strengthen their skills in math, reading,
geography, and the sciences. At the secondary level, the focus
turns to developing word and data processing skills for which
there is growing demand in the work worlds of Lilongwe, Blantyre,
and Mzuzu (and increasingly also in the smaller towns). Finally,
a small group of interested staff members from the five institutions
has been trained over the last several months to carry out first
line and preventive maintenance and to ensure that serious problems
are called promptly to the attention of the senior technician.
A storeroom has been identified, and shelves built to accommodate
a respectable inventory of spare parts and an adjoining room in
the Robert Laws Secondary School computer building has been set
aside as a computer workshop.
The young and enthusiastic computer committee recently formed
with representation from all institutions has eagerly accepted
the role of managing the above facility as well as the fund itself.
They have developed a sense of camaraderie through their training
and are confidently facing the task of seeing to it that these
computers do not fall into a state of disuse and disrepair.
The $5,000 spent for communications and outreach fell into two
major categories. The first of these was the provision of email
to Embangweni where none had previously existed. This was done
first through a satellite telephone and later through the Winlink
system mentioned above. As people have learned to use email and
have grown in their familiarity with it, the level of enthusiasm
has risen perceptibly. We believe this communication medium will
vastly change and enhance the level of contact and cooperation
between congregations here and sister congregations in the United
States and the United Kingdom.
The second major initiative in this area was the funding of travel
for the parish minister, head of station, and presbytery clerk,
along with his wife, to Zambia and the Democratic Republic of
the Congo (DRC) to make contacts with the Presbyterian communities
in those two neighboring countries. A return visit to Embangweni
from one of the elders and hospital administrator in DRC the following
year marked a deepening of this relationship and we are hopeful
that further fruits will yet be borne in the arena of cross-regional
church relations.
These are the dry descriptive facts. The reality is that people
all around Embangweni have developed a tremendous pride in the
fact that their community is now emerging as a kind of regional
center for computer education. Parents from afar are increasingly
seeking to place their children in the Embangweni schools because
of the computer education, and the hospital is fast developing
a reputation for improved reporting and services as the staff
becomes more and more attuned to using their computers effectively
to improve their work. Far from regarding the computers as some
intrusive gadget foreign to their culture, people are embracing
them and anxious to learn all they can about them as the way toward
a brighter future. That may sound overblown but it is not out
of line with the way you should hear people talking about it around
the area!
In short, friends, your contributions have sparked an important
aspect of development and we think there is every possibility
that the spark may prove to be a great new opportunity for people
in the Embangweni area. With our departure, we are confident they
will rise to the challenges and will grow and become stronger
and more independent. The computers will play a role in that process.
Thank you, and keep up the good work!
Sincerely,
Bill Rule
The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
337 |
