Computer Lab Project
Randoph Macon Team in
Computer Lab with children
In the January of 2008, Dr. Ben Burrell, chair of the computer science department at Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA led a team of faculty and students to Maison Fortuné Orphanage to give computer workshops to the 4th, 5th, and 6th graders at the school and also to the boys attending secondary school in town. Again in 2009 during R-MC’s “January Term”, Dr. Burrell led the team back to the orphanage. They were to leave in January 2010, when the earthquake struck 2 days prior to their departure. Needless to say, the trip had to be scrubbed when the airlines canceled all flights for days.
Everyone believes it to be very important to the overall education of the children that they learn computer skills. Obviously, this will help them as they move into the higher levels of education.
The primary school on the Maison Fortuné campus serves not only the orphanage residents, but also over one hundred of the poorest children in the neighborhood, those whose families could not afford to send them to school if Maison Fortuné did not offer them not only a free education, but also a hot meal each day.
The school may be the only one on Haiti’s central plateau with a computer lab and teacher. The computers, however, are old and subject to the dust that comes through the open windows of the lab, particularly during the dry season that covers most of the school year.
The computers are being replaced by Dell laptops that have been purchased but need to be delivered to the orphanage. Due to the serious concern about theft in transit, the laptops are hand carried to the orphanage by visitors instead of shipping them in a container. While this takes much longer to deliver them, they should all arrive safely. We hope to have them all in place prior to Dr. Burrell’s Randolph Macon College class trip in January 2011.
Of course, we are hopeful of locating funding for additional equipment to be able to meet the needs of more children. If you can help us, please contact us at helpthechildren@mfofoundation.org.