Computer Academy for Orphans in Africa

[apocalypseHow]

Hello everyone,

I am new here on the forums but have had Raspberry Pi's since they came out, currently own 6 of all different models. Being a reader of MagPi, I thought of the Raspberry Pi for this idea I had.

I am friends with the executive director of an Orphanage in Uganda, Africa called Children Rescue Voluntary Organization, or CRVO (Restoring Lost Hope). I have been watching and studying their operations for over a year and came to the realization that if I put together a basic gofundme campaign to get 10 raspberry pis and monitors and associated accessories we could have a great impact on these poor kids who were given the short end of the stick in life. With minimal effort and crowd-sourced funding, we can have a major impact on these kids lives and possibly the region.

Here is the details of the campaign I have launched:

Gofundme:
https://www.gofundme.com/28vt99cc

I was wondering, does anyone have any pointers on how I can improve the likelihood of success of this campaign? I know the Raspberry Pi Foundation is all about this type of stuff and this is all for a good cause, no one stands to make any money from it its just to give these orphans a chance. I am open for suggestions on where to post to get it going.

[ejolson]

There is a nice entry about starting a charity in Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveodland ... dad6d044b8

Apparent things that need to be done are to register as a 501(c)(3) and establish an advisory board consisting of a few people with significant nonprofit experience.

The link to the orphanage on the fund raising web page is broken and points to a Facebook site. The email to the orphanage is a yahoo.co.uk address. You have never personally visited the orphanage. There is no letter of support for this project from the orphanage. These are all causes for concern.

The letter of support should be official and indicate how the hardware will be procured, where it will be located, who is responsible for its physical security and who will provide funds to power, network and maintain it. The comment that the orphanage didn't ask for the computing lab could also be taken to mean they don't want and can't use it.

Setting up and maintaining a lab of Pi computers remotely seems quite difficult. Do you have plans to travel to the orphanage any time during the project?

[broe23]

My wife and I sponsor a teen through Myanmar Hope. They use eservicepayments.com for handling any donations for the organization. I have brought up about using the Pi for classroom use, or even tablets. The issue is with the weather is so humid and that there is so much power fluctuations, along with that they do not use any electricity until it gets dark. It would not be cost effective.

The one problem I see with the Africa thing is that the monitors require a lot of electricity to run for that many Pi's. Also the fact that the environment and trying to make them understand that they are delicate and how the cards are inserted, you are looking at some major factors.

The other item you also need to be aware of, is that a lot of people in that region would not know what a computer is, let alone the elders may look at it as something that is being used to brainwash the youngsters. Also they are more outdoors than inside. Technology is not something common that you see widespread. It may be in Internet cafe's or tv's set up for sports. But they still rely on typewriters, books, paper and pencil for anything and everything that they do.

Now for the big factor. The Pi Zero or even any of the Pi's can be used for controlling IED's or timed explosives if they fall into the wrong hands. There are just too many factors that you have to look at on this. Too much in the negative vs. positive.

[SonOfAMotherlessGoat]

[MOD EDIT - POST REMOVED]

[jamesh]

Now for the big factor. The Pi Zero or even any of the Pi's can be used for controlling IED's or timed explosives if they fall into the wrong hands. There are just too many factors that you have to look at on this. Too much in the negative vs. positive.

Strawman argument. Many many things can be used to time explosives, so many in fact it's not worth trying to stop them being used. Any other SBC for example, or Arduinos', or discrete electronics or alarm clocks or Casio watches to name a few of the more common ones. You cannot stop education because there is a chance the tools (or the actual education) could be used for ill. Don't teach people to use a lathe, they could make a gun, don't teach them chemistry, they could make a bomb, don't teach them computer science because they can be a hacker.

[AliceArias]

Hey! That was really a great work you were doing for orphans! I was randomly searching for a thread and got to know about this thread. Donating the charity for a good cause really feels great and gives you a lot of happiness. I also love to work for the humanity for the people who are less fortunate than others. I have visited many places and contribute their as a volunteer for humanity. Recently I got to know about the website which allows people to work for the orphans and help them in giving better education. Orphans should also receive love and support and better education compared to other children. So, as a community, we need to donate and help orphans for their better future.

[W. H. Heydt]

Hey! That was really a great work you were doing for orphans! I was randomly searching for a thread and got to know about this thread. Donating the charity for a good cause really feels great and gives you a lot of happiness. I also love to work for the humanity for the people who are less fortunate than others. I have visited many places and contribute their as a volunteer for humanity. Recently I got to know about the website which allows people to work for the orphans and help them in giving better education. Orphans should also receive love and support and better education compared to other children. So, as a community, we need to donate and help orphans for their better future.

Please note the lack of followup posts by the OP (the Forum software shows that he has made exactly *one* post...the one that started this thread). As a result, ther is no way to tell what--if anything--has been done in over a year.

[mahjongg]

Also the "gofundme" page of the OP is now offline.

That and new off topic links to sites in a recent post, made me decide to move this to off-topic.

Also orphans do not need to get "better care" than "other children", (assuming those kids have parents) merely just as good care, or the results could be quite counter productive.