[linuxola] [Fwd: Re: nearly 4 months in cameroon, time for infos ...]
Andreas Rudin
linuxola at revamp-it.ch
Mon Mar 9 11:31:40 CET 2009
-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Betreff: Re: nearly 4 months in cameroon, time for infos ...
Datum: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:50:34 +0100
Von: kamerun at immerda.ch <kamerun at immerda.ch>
An: kamerun at immerda.ch <kamerun at immerda.ch>
Referenzen: <49B2688E.9050909 at immerda.ch>
kamerun at immerda.ch wrote:
> hello,
>
> yes already so long in cameroon, but it seems too short, i spent my
> whole life here, switzerland is really so far, not only measured in
> kilometers, but the reality here, the friends, the school...
>
> Ruben, a friend from switzerland was here for 3 months and he was of
> a good help for every body, now he is gone, i hope and i am quite sure
> he will not forget us, especially all the trainers and students,
> neighbours, etc. if somebody want to come: we only say welcome to
> cameroon
>
>
> our activities are described on our homepage
>
> http://sokolo.cronopios.org
>
> i will try to give you a objective image of the situation here, so not
> only the positive sides.
>
> our main activities are the school: we have in moment 25 - 30 students
> daily, mostly young people and the majority are women. why 25-30? the
> fluctuation is very high, too high, but it is a mirror of the society
> here: none of the students has a regular job. how they survive? i
> don't know, some of them are young, the youngest is elisabeth (13
> years old): she does not come every day, but she help and she allready
> knows a lot about computer. we are open from monday to friday with 2
> sessions daily: the first runs from 10 to 13 and the second from 4 to
> 7 pm. we tried to develop a democratic structure: so we have a weekly
> meeting on tuesday at 3.30 pm. most of the students here are having
> contact with computer for their first time. unfortunately the old
> students are not always present. one the reasons is the fluctuation
> rate and the lack of our possibilites to give them a perspective.
>
> internet bring facilities but problems too...
> as you know we have internet and that's true it make the school more
> easy, for example we have many courses in moodle, which we take from
> internet, but ...
> it is very difficult to manage the internet. technically we have a
> connection 128 kb/s / 64 kb/s, wimax technology ( i don't like wimax,i
> would like to have connection from the base to top, wimax is typically
> the contrary. the first installation has cost 200'000 cfa (500.-) too
> expensive. monthly, we pay 30'000 cfa (75.- frs) . Another problem
> here is that the internet connection is very slow so we need a better
> connection.
> it is difficult for the school, we have divided the school into two
> parts. the internet part (6 computers) and the real school part with
> (12 computers). it is difficult to teach with internet: the people go
> to skype, facebook and worse. it seems to me, that this is like a toy
> we give to children, they play and play, a story without end. i hope
> , it will stop like a child is fascinated with a toy and play with
> it, but let it by side after 2 days... we will see. i am really not
> happy about this situation,but its changing alreally.
>
moodle courses
we have work very hard, but now we have many courses, which we use for
the class. we will publish a few examples on the internet. we are still
looking for moodle courses to upload, it could help us a lot. any idea?
wireless
we have begun with wireless test: with our containners and pringles
antennas we can make good connections (1 kilometer). we would like to
connect a radio, but it is far and no sight, there is a hill between our
place and the radio. we can reach the hill, this is a village named kie,
but there is nobody who could pay internet (no money). we would like to
install a router, but if the people are not integrated, it is difficult
to assure that the router disappear. if somebody would like to support
such a project like www.openwireless.ch, just mail us.
and a friend of the ubuntu cameroon want a mokom mobile. i met in
switzerland at the ubuntu treff who has taken part of the openmokom
project, can may be the people of the ubuntu helfen to find this contact?
> finance:
> if you have finance crisis in europe, we have it in the school:
> each student pay 2300 cfa (8.- frs)for registration monthly. it is
> very cheap as compared to the internet schools in the limbe town,
> why? our concept is: we want that the school can leave from the income
> the school can generate. so we do phootocopy. 1 photocpy cost 25 cfa
> (0.06 frs), typing (it means people come here and the school type
> their documents, 1 page typing cost 150 cfa (0.30 frs), this cannot
> solve our finance problem. we are struggling to find some customers to
> make a homepage (some company want 45.000 cfa (1125.- frs) for a
> homepage, but other offices, companies, do it for 50'000 (125.-frs).
> For the moment the school does not have enough income to survive.
> worst, our expenditures are increasing: we paid before ~25'000 cfa
> (62.- frs) monthly for electricity but last month we recieve a bill of
> 50'000 cfa (115.- frs). our friend victor in buea told me the same
> story. but we are still hoping and struggling to be financially
> independent too.
>
> if financially the situation is bad, the situation of the school is
> good, a group of about 10 students are learning how to program in php.
> more and more they are requesting for attestation and certificates.
> we always evaluate them with a test each friday. for certificates;
> in switzerland i ask ecdl, but i havn't recieved any answer. in buea
> there is a center, but we had no time to take contact. 2 of our
> students has found a job, unfortunately one lost her job: the office
> has closed, the third one is trying to secure a job yet.
>
> material:
> we have good material, especially the mini itx of www.pcengines.ch are
> very good, 9 are connected see
> http://sokolo.cronopios.org/newclass1.php we made measure with the
> material we have, we recieve mails and a discussion took place: this
> was very good and we would like to have more such reactions (even if
> it is sometimes difficult). we now have 2 network ltsp ith 2 servers
> with each 2 cpu Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz and 1 gb ram. one
> xen server does not function properly, one ethernet card makes
> problem. we think about the concept of our xen server, because as they
> have no xwindow, we loose one working place for nothing. we will try
> to install x2go. we have server but no client left: we have elan vital
> clients but the last one which was working can not start anymore. we
> have tried to bring them up, but without success. i hope the other
> projects are more lucky with these computers, but it would be really
> good to have a statitstic: as i told you before, for me it is
> iresponsible to send old computers in africa, which are not working
> or die after few months.
>
> contact:
> in limbe we have a good reputation and some students are coming from
> the town to our school. we have good contact to the population and
> with the traditional authorities.
> and outside limbe.
> bamenda: we had until now no time to go in bamenda: the group has
> still problems
> yaounde:
> the group of mimboman has recieved material. 2 young people of the
> group were here to learn how to update the homepage www.njabisoli.org
> but it is still not going. the group told us that they will begin a
> new learning session with new students. we will go in yaounde in a
> few weeks.
> we had contact with a member of the ubuntu-camroon group, we will
> visit him when we go to yaounde.
> ubuntu-cameroon
> this group exist now since last year. in the group, they are some
> members in europe (USA?) and the other in cameroon. we are in contact
> with a member in douala and yaounde.
> douala-bekoko
> i know mr. samo from switzerland, he is a cameronian but he was in
> switzerland many years ago and now he is back in africa. He met us in
> bekoko, a village near douala with other friends. we had a weekend
> meeting together in limbe (see
> http://sokolo.cronopios.org/bekoko21.php it was technically difficult,
> but we succeeded technically (we clone our ltsp server to give them
> the possibility to start working in a little network with all our
> software (ltsp, lampp with moodle and mediawiki). beside the technical
> results, we had a very good atmosphere and it gave us hope and energy
> to start working together.
>
> contact from europe
> we had 2 visit: eric came and it was a good meeting (see homepage) we
> hope we can develop the work together. sebastian came too, it was good
> and we have taken his php tutorial as basis for a moodle courses
> (thank you sebastian)
>
> contact with europe:
> i wish more contact, more discussion... our voip telephone is still
> not working, but e-mail is going and today the technic is not the
> reason of the lack of contact
>
>
> michel