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[neutronned]

I was thinking last night that a "sister school" concept would be great.  A US school would sponsor a developing country school.  Provide funding for XOs, technical support, language lessons, etc.  Maybe align with a local User Group to gather in extended help for building custom activities or getting deeper support.

The US school gets to channel student enthusiasm into a worthy cause, including learning to provide technical support, cultural diversity, languages, social issues, computer programming, etc.

Thoughts??  Does OLPC already have something like this???

[Brian Basgen]

 I am not aware of OLPC doing this. There is an interesting concept here in terms of charity effectiveness. There are charity organizations that do this kind of thing, in terms of "adopt a child". Heck, it would be great to see the community that gets the laptops we donated!

 In order to work, I think it would have to be grassroots, and a charity organization is probably more suited to the task than a school. A classroom of 30 would cost $12,000, and there would be some overhead costs as well to create and maintain the connection, so I think a school classroom would be more of 'one participant among many', rather than the driving force.

 Now, what if this was flipped around a bit? For example, a town to classroom program?

[neutronned]

What got me started was the thought that I would like to help the child that got the other half of my donation.  We could support each other and I could help motivate them into doing better in school.  That thought expanding to a particular User Group supporting a particular school.  That then grew into a school-to-school connection so that students make connections and learn together.

When there is an official pairing of organizations, there is a sense of ownership and pride in seeing the relationship work. 

[Brian Basgen]

 That is a really good idea. I actually just got off the phone with someone who is working on a project in Phoenix to combine a Rotary club with a school. The key is finding the source of funds, and the rotary club certainly seems interested. Since it is local, there is limited organizational overhead of keeping the lanes of communication open that you are talking about -- and in this sense it works very well on a grass roots level. The two groups can connect themselves! This in turn creates a pretty sustainable, long-lasting relationship.

[meloukhia]

I think also that having pen pals between schools could be really neat, as well. I'm still in touch with my elementary school pen pal, who was from Tibet, and I really appreciate that connection. It would be fascinating to see correspondence and collaboration between school children in developed countries and those in the third world.