Changing Education Around the World

This is No Ordinary Box!

SmartBox® solves 6 challenges faced by schools in developing countries:

1. Lack of Internet - The SmartBox® provides students a vast collection of content sent wirelessly to the Chromebooks.
2. Limited Electricity - Runs on battery power for 12-16 hours; recharges in 5 hours with generator or solar system.
3. Textbook Shortage - Students have access to a myriad of books, videos and learning resources.
4. Teacher Shortage - Students can learn in the absence of a qualified teacher, and teachers can also learn!
5. Messy Wiring Runs - Gone are the days of the traditional computer lab with its tangle of cords.
6. Security - Can be securely locked and stored each evening.

• 20 Chromebook laptops
• 20 headsets - can be shared by 40 students
• Loaded with educational resources including Wikipedia, Khan Academy, textbooks, encyclopedias, beginning readers, and more!
• Click here to view the Menu including the NEW Biblical Resource Library
• Provide your own content and curriculum on a USB stick
• Can be configured in English, Spanish or French
• Portable waterproof, shockproof case with wheels
• Charges with either 110v or 230v
• Over $1 million invested in Research & Development
• Powered by Internet-in-a-Box technology

They were found through a quirk of the region’s geopolitical history, which left a photographic trail of WWII aerial photos and declassified Cold War-era spy satellite images.

A group of children were listening to a story beneath the shade of an African juniper tree in a small church forest near Debre Tabor in northern Ethiopia. Three women walked along a path, the sound of their chatting permeating the dense trees as our group of 12 people, clearly foreigners, approached.

When the children spotted us at the forest’s edge, they came running along the dusty path, jumped over a low rock wall, ducked under branches and approached us curiously. I was tagging along with a group of researchers led by ecologist Dr Catherine Cardelús from Colgate University in New York state and Bernahu Tsegay from Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia who were here to learn about the forest’s ecology. The kids, meanwhile, were already experts. They knew every inch of the place; having grown up in these trees, this is the only forest they have ever seen.

I was in a ‘sacred forest’, more than 1,000 of which are scattered across the landscape in a near perfect lattice, each protecting a traditional Ethiopian Orthodox church at its centre. These small, neat clusters of trees, each about 2km away from the next, ensure that the local people are never far from the forests that are so deeply rooted in their social and spiritual lives. They’re used as community centres, meeting places and schools; for religious ceremonies, burial grounds and even bathrooms; and provide the only shade for miles. Although some sacred forests are fairly accessible, like the island forests on Lake Tana that can be visited on a half-day boat tour from the city of Bahir Dar, in the rural, mountainous landscapes of South Gondar, east of Bahir Dar, where I now was, the church forests can be harder to find.

Each dot of green stands out on the landscape because they are some of the only trees left in a country that’s experienced widespread deforestation. Some forests are more than 1,000 years old, and these precious trees have been spared thanks to shadow conservation – conservation as a by-product of religious stewardship. But they are small and threatened by encroaching roads, buildings and farmers' fields. Paradoxically, humans have both protected them yet pose the biggest threat to their future.

Although many travellers will have heard of the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia, few will know about the "new Lalibela" being carved out of the rockface by a devoted monk.

Legend has it that the dramatic rock-hewn churches of Lalibela were created with the help of a team of angels. Buried deep into the rock in the highlands of northern Ethiopia, the 11 monolithic churches were built in the late 12th and early 13th Centuries by King Lalibela, who, so he claimed, had built the churches on the instruction from God.

With the Crusades in full swing and the pilgrimage sites of Jerusalem too dangerous to visit, the Lalibela churches were envisioned to be a "new" Jerusalem and a place of pilgrimage for Ethiopia's large Orthodox Christian community.

Today, the churches remain a major place of pilgrimage for Ethiopia's Christians. They're also a Unesco World Heritage site, and international travellers flock here to see one of Africa's most extraordinary historical spots.

The amazingly diverse languages of Africa. This a continent with a very high linguistic diversity, there are an estimated 2200 African languages.

The indigenous languages of Africa are divided into 6 major language families: Afroasiatic, Nilo Saharan, Niger-Congo A, Niger-Congo B (Bantu), Khoisan, Austronesian.

Map of Africa using ethnically drawn borders

Praise the Lord with us for I-TEC teammates and unexpected connections! This picture was taken in Brussels, Belgium. The five men on the left were on their way to Liberia, West Africa. The four on the right were heading back to the U.S. from Uganda, Central Africa.

Only God could orchestrate such a meeting!

Sky's Africa correspondent, Yousra Elbagir, watched as evacuees arrived in Saudi Arabia from Sudan on HMS Taif.

In the crowd, she spotted her uncle, Mohsin, a Sudanese-American surgeon, who boarded a ship in Port Sudan to escape the fighting in Khartoum.

Thursday 27 April 2023 19:18, UK

Many low-resource areas of the world are short on medical technology, including incubators. So why not turn parents into pseudo-incubators? When a baby is born prematurely, a good way to help the baby survive and thrive is simply to hold it close to a parent's naked chest. No technology needed!

That's the essence of kangaroo care.

It's a method of holding the baby, clad only in a diaper, right up against a parent's bare chest for skin-to-skin contact. In 1978, physician researchers Edgar Rey Sanabria and Héctor Martínez-Gómez introduced the technique at the maternity ward of the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Bogota, Colombia. //

"It was what we had to do and it saved my child's life" //

"It creates a link to my child and brings me closer with my wife" //

"I started taking part ... to give the love of a father to my children"

Officials in Florida are again battling a highly invasive, extraordinarily destructive giant snail species that also happens to be capable of spreading parasitic worms that invade human brains.

The giant African land snail (GALS)—aka Lissachatina fulica—can grow up to 20 centimeters (8 inches) long and is considered "one of the most invasive pests on the planet," according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. It ravenously feasts on over 500 plant species—including many valuable fruits, vegetables, and ornamentals—while prolifically spawning, pushing out several thousand eggs in its multiyear life span. //

While the snails are a grave threat to agriculture and natural vegetation in the state, the invasive mollusks also pose a health risk. They're known to transmit rat lungworm parasites, which can invade the human central nervous system and cause a type of meningitis. For this reason, officials warn people not to handle the mammoth snails without gloves.

Brain invasion
You may recall that rat lungworm made headlines a few years ago when Hawaii's health department tallied more than a dozen cases in 2018 and 2019. In 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also published data on several unconnected cases from eight continental states between 2011 and 2017, suggesting a widespread presence.

The rat lungworm—aka Angiostrongylus cantonensis—gets its name by primarily infecting the lungs of rats and other rodents. In the lungs, adult worms mate and females lay eggs, which develop into larvae. The rats then cough up those young parasites and end up swallowing them, then pooping them out. //

From those laden logs, the larvae infect snails and slugs (intermediate hosts), via burrowing into their soft bodies or in the event that the mollusks feast on infected feces. In the last steps of this gut-turning life cycle, rats nosh on the infected snails and slugs, delivering late-stage larvae that migrate from the rodent's stomachs to their brains, where the worms develop into young adults. Those mature worms then migrate back to the rats' lungs for breezy breeding time.

Humans are accidental hosts in this cycle. People pick up an infection by eating undercooked snails or slugs; eating fruits and vegetables contaminated by infected snails or slugs; or eating undercooked animals that may have eaten snails and slugs, such as frogs or crabs. Just like in rats, when the worms are ingested by humans, they make their way to the central nervous system.

On arrival at Kenya's biggest seaport, Mombasa, the container is loaded onto a ship for a voyage to Europe of around 30 days. Despite their lengthy journey, they will still be sold to European shoppers with a vase-life of about a week.

So, how is this possible?

"The flowers will be kept at a temperature of 0.5 degrees celsius throughout the journey," says Elizabeth Kimani, the manager of quality and standards at Sian Flowers.

As well as controlling the temperature, the atmosphere system in the container reduces the oxygen level from 20% to 4%, while increasing the carbon dioxide level from 0.4% to 4%.

This technology is all part of the elaborate process of preserving the blooms for as long as possible. //

But flowers destined for such a long voyage need extra attention to prepare them, as soon as they are picked.

"We harvest them early in the morning, when it's still cool and they will be the first to go into the cold room," explains Linda Murungi from grower, Sian Flowers.

Freshly-harvested roses, for instance, are then dipped into a chemical mixture to protect them from the fungus, botrytis.

After that, the stems are put into buckets to absorb a hydration solution so they can survive the thirty days without water. They are also put in a solution that curbs the growth hormone, ethylene, which causes the ageing of the flowers.

Once that process is completed, the flowers are then packed into cartons with holes in the top and bottom, which allow air from the container's system to circulate. //

Kenya has become one of the world's biggest flower exporters thanks to its equatorial location, high altitudes and relatively cheap labour, it competes for dominance in the market with Colombia and Ecuador.

For years, the two Latin American countries have been exporting about 10% of their flowers by sea freight to North America and Europe.

As these flowers are at sea for a much shorter period of time, firms exporting from Latin America do not use controlled atmosphere, or post-harvest treatments.

Kenyan exporters however, have to be extra-careful. There is no direct shipping route in to Europe, instead, containers are transferred in the Middle East from smaller vessels to much larger ones.

An entirely African operating room in Liberia is the fruit of decades of a Christian surgical training program and African surgeons’ sacrifices

The "BioNTainer" is a rather bland looking modular structure, but scientists here say two of these beige, two-storey containers could churn out up to 50 million doses of vaccine a year.

BioNTech intends to provide the containers, raw materials and know-how at no cost.

In return the host country would provide the land and, ensure that local infrastructure such as water and electricity is sufficient and reliable, and find people to work in the container.

So-called "filling and finishing" of the product would also happen in Africa.

The vaccines produced would be for use in the country where it was made or exported to other members of the African Union at a not-for-profit price.

"It's not cheap, we're talking millions" says BioNTech's Chief Operating Officer Sierk Poetting. "We're financing this at our own risk. We've developed this at our own risk. It's our goal to bring this to Africa."

Samuel Sorie Sesay, one of a dwindling group of West Africans who fought in the British army in World War Two, died last month in Sierra Leone at the age of 101. Ahead of his funeral on Friday, Umaru Fofana looks back at his life.

Writing a novel based on his experiences in Africa allowed the author to reframe his diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. //

My condition has progressed, and I've lost much of my coordination. I had to stop playing racquetball for fear of crashing into the wall. My golf game disintegrated because my hands jerked when I was putting. I continued to walk in the forest with my fox terrier, Molly, but over time my gait became stiff. When I try to walk around the house, my body freezes up and I struggle to get started. Once I do get moving, I am awkward and often bump into furniture.

But my biggest concern is mental. I know the brain is like a muscle: Use it or lose it. I was determined to use it, but I lacked a purpose. It was my wife who suggested I write a novel. During my tenure at the college, I had written some scholarly pieces and even memoirs, but I had never attempted fiction.

Contemplating the idea, I recalled some of my adventures in Africa—hiking to Lake Malawi, wrestling with pythons, living with traditional Murle people in Sudan—and thought I could work them into the book. I decided to set the story in Tanzania and center it on a character with Parkinson's disease. In the novel Karl Lundberg returns to Africa, where he shifts to a plant-based diet, exercises in the open air, interacts with local people, and encounters wildlife—and gradually feels his despair lift.

The lions become a stand-in for his disease, always lurking, always a threat, but also beautiful and impressive in how they inspire him to live fully and joyfully despite the fear and uncertainty of an incurable condition.

Writing the novel encouraged me in a similar way. I've learned to embrace and adjust to the changes brought on by Parkinson's disease instead of fighting them and to be grateful for each day and for the robust memories of my time in Africa.

Latest Downloads

• 32bit - rachel-pi_09_06_2021 20
• https://ftp.worldpossible.org/rachel-pi/beta/rachel-pi_09_06_2021.zip
• 32bit Raspberry Pi 3B+ image - rachel-pi_10_18_2021-3B.zip
• https://ftp.worldpossible.org/rachel-pi/beta/rachel-pi_10_18_2021-3B.zip

Please use the 3B+ image for 3B devices.

This image includes support for Kiwix 3.1.2 modules. These modules are named with “_2021”. Older Wikipedia modules are not compatible with this image. Please make sure to download and install the latest Kiwix modules that include “_2021” in their name.

en-moodle, en-file_share, en-kolibri-index, en-ka-lite, and older Kiwix modules ( Wikipedia ) are not supported with this image when downloaded. en-file_share and en-kolibri-index are included with the images.

You can expect to get roughly 8 users connected by default without a separate wifi router or USB wifi interface.

https://ftp.worldpossible.org/rachel-pi/tutorials/01_installing_rachel_pi.pdf

https://ftp.worldpossible.org/rachel-pi/tutorials/02_Installing_Modules.pdf

EduPak replaces rote teaching with the spark of modern technology.

We use a media storage device (Synology DS218+ w/ 2x 2TB HDD) and wireless technology to stream thousands of videos to any wifi enabled device. All tablets, cell phones, laptops and desktops that have wifi access can access our media storage device that delivers thousands of educational videos ///

[compare with RACHEL (worldpossible.org) ]

00:03
I'm a storyteller. And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I like to call "the danger of the single story." I grew up on a university campus in eastern Nigeria. My mother says that I started reading at the age of two, although I think four is probably close to the truth. So I was an early reader, and what I read were British and American children's books.

A collection of the world's best Open Educational Resources.
Download ContentRACHEL is the easiest way to download and deploy free content repackaged for offline users. We specifically curate content to serve the needs of offline populations in developing countries.

RACHEL (Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning) is a portable, battery-powered, device that contains copies of educational websites in offline format. This means RACHEL can go anywhere in the world and wirelessly deliver free digital educational content to nearby tablets, laptops, or smartphones with no internet or data plans required. RACHEL has been taken to over 53 countries since its creation, serving students in rural villages, townships, and even prisons.

Almost every afternoon in the Dworzak neighborhood of Freetown, Sierra Leone, Yebu Bare hikes up a steep hillside to fill a 5-gallon bucket with water that spills from a crack in a giant cement cistern. The spindly 12-year-old carefully puts the bucket on her head, then treks down the winding dirt path home.

Her mother, Isate Bare, says their family needs five buckets of this water a day for bathing, washing dishes and cleaning. Isate, Yebu and her siblings take turns hauling it.

West Africa is a very large region with great plant diversity and a high degree of endemism. However, the impact of Man on the native vegetation of the region is great and plant species are being lost without there being any record of their existence.

Let's put together a photographic record of plants found growing in West Africa. And who knows, you may be the first person to have photographed (or even the first to have seen!) that plant.

Parkia biglobosa, also known as the African locust bean (West African names: néré, dodongba, doruwa, netetou, netto, sumbala or iru) is a perennial deciduous tree of the family Fabaceae, in the genus Parkia.[2] It is found in a wide range of environments in Africa and is primarily grown for its pods that contain both a sweet pulp and valuable seeds. Where the tree is grown, the crushing and fermenting of these seeds constitutes an important economic activity. Various parts of the locust bean tree are used for medicinal and food purposes. As a standing tree, locust bean may have a positive effect on the yield of other nearby crops.