THANK YOU! World Librarians is expanding in Kenya

Thank you for your partnership in our first World Librarians campaign. With some last minute donations we were able to meet our goal of $2500! Keep following us to see the digital library in Dandora, Kenya, come together. 

World Librarians is a socio-technical system invented through a collaboration between colleagues in Malawi and students at UMass Amherst. World Librarians provides educational content to schools in Malawi, Kenya and Ghana. These schools have no real library and have no access to the Internet, causing the children to have very limited information to support their learning. We are successfully supporting over 20 schools in Malawi and now want to help children living in Dandora, a slum in Nairobi, Kenya. 

In Dandora, high school drop out rates, poverty and the dump site which is East Africa's largest dumping site, have led to extremely high crime rates in the slum. In the midst of these difficult circumstances, Net Bila Net, World Librarians partner organization, is working to get access to quality education in the slum.

We are now fundraising to set up a new World Librarians program in Dandora. Throughout this campaign our goal is to collect $2,500, which will cover:

1. 20 tablets, at $50 each, for a children’s school in Dandora;
2. Data downloading costs of the Kenyan teacher working at this school;
3. The purchase of an additional RACHEL device for another classroom; and,
4. Funding to support the Waruk’s Productions team in Kenya in building out this program. 

Students collaborating on their donated infrastructure in Malawi. 

How does it all work?

The schools and libraries we support have established some access to computer labs and a workable offline Wi-Fi router system called the RACHEL (learn more about the RACHEL device here). The UMass World Librarians team is charged with searching for digital educational content on topics that teachers and students request. Once uploaded, we rely on the teachers at these schools in the Global South to download the content for use in classrooms and computer labs, using their personal cell data plans, which is very expensive for them. 

The key hurdle in this workflow is providing the technology and funding needed in order to access the content that the UMass World Librarians provide. This is why the UMass World Librarians program has decided to start a fundraiser to help cover the cost, specifically for tablets and other expenses for our team in Kenya. 

Any and all donations will help us get open access educational materials to these children in Nairobi who have very little available in terms of educational materials, but brilliant minds and indomitable spirits.

To follow our story, check us out on Instagram and Twitter accounts. 

To find out more about what goes on behind the scenes, check out the videos on the page and the links below: 

http://bookmark.library.umass.edu/node/4 (An older story on World Librarians in Malawi)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292920300540

https://keepod.com/


https://www.worldpossible.org/rachel