[linuxola] [Fwd: Re: nearly 4 months in cameroon, time for infos ...]

[kamerun@immerda.ch]

hello,

theo hat mir bestätigt,

/Die Linuxola-Liste gibt es nicht mehr. Es wird irgendeinen Ersatz 
geben, aber dies ist scheinbar noch nicht erfolgt.

Am besten schickst du deinen interessanten Bericht direkt mit den 
Adressen im BCC.


/werde machen./
/kann ich die adreesen haben?

merci

michel
/

/
Andreas Rudin wrote:
> -------- 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
>>     
>
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