Motorola Foundation Partners with IICD to Bring ICT to 5,000 Zambian Youths
Sep 17 2009, Zambia [ZM], Education
- Source:
- Lesley White [lwhite(at)iicd.org]
- Country:
- Zambia [ZM]
- Sector:
- Education
The Motorola Foundation and Dutch non-profit organisation IICD recently joined hands to bring ICT to 11 high schools and youth vocational training centres in Zambia. The programme will help improve teaching skills, develop study materials and improve school management and administration.
The collaboration will expand the reach of the successful IICD project launched in 2006 in Lusaka. Through this project information and communication technology (ICT) has been integrated into teaching materials and practices. It also helps young people find and develop business opportunities. This programme and the related hardware will now be implemented in other schools and training centres.
In 2006 IICD started a small project with the youth vocational centre in Chawama, a township in the heart of Lusaka, to set up an ICT training centre to develop young people’s skills. Within two years more than 300 people were trained. ICT components were also used to:
- improve lesson content
- produce handouts quickly
- store and re-use lesson plans.
Young people also learned how to use the Internet to find business and training opportunities, write proposals and business plans to set up their own company and market their products. One group even utilized their media skills to record their own music.
The Motorola Foundation is investing US$ 100,000 to make this programme accessible to schools as well as vocational training centres. Over one year, teachers and administrative staff at six high schools and five youth vocational training centres will receive training to improve their programs. The schools and centres focus on business, tailoring, building construction and music recording in seven rural and urban regions in Zambia.
Motorola Ltd. UK will also subsidise and donate hardware to connect the schools and training centres. This includes two WiMAX base stations, outdoor WiMAX Modems, Wireless Broadband Routers and other communications equipment. Using this equipment AfriConnect, the local internet service provider, will be able to connect more IICD rural and urban partners.