UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - AFRICAN STUDIES CENTER
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NOVAE Group

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         / _______/   Kathryn Amanda Cossi            kcossi@tenet.edu
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       / / /__  /     Bill Jacobson               wmjake@pen.k12.va.us
      / /____/ /      Arthur Galus            c6460101@idptv.idbsu.edu
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Sender: ednet@nic.umass.edu

From: DAVID@tvhs.wcape.school.za (David Rogers)

Greetings all fellow Educators,

I am a seventh generation "Settler" living in South Africa. I have seen momentous changes occuring in my country and the rest of Africa over the last couple of years. The relics and ghosts of Colonisation still haunt our continent. Partial solutions to incompletly understood problems have left scars on our land. Other nations and peoples have tried to solve our problems but leave ever increasing problems in their place. The only true solution to our difficulties lie in empowerment through education. Our people will no longer have to accept outside solutions to our problems, but we can solve them ourselves. Africa's desire for education is often under-estimated. Children walk may miles to "school" everyday in all sorts of conditions to attend a class that is overcrowded (90 pupils to classroom, three to a desk), often lacking textbooks, excercise books and basic writing materials and the teacher is often barely literate herself. Parents are unable to contribute to school fees or provide a suitable place to study- in many cases not even able to provide a meal for their children to come home to after school. The World's reaction to this up until now has been to apply sanctions to South Africa. These have had the desired effect. The Apartheid regime has fallen. This was a necessary step, but the next phase is even more important. Out of these economic ruins a new Nation must rise up: Education must be its foundation. Many Unviersities and schools in the US and elsewhere were at the forefront of the sanctions calls. This didnot require much personal sacrifice on the part of the students, the universities or even American business. Oranges taste very much the same wether they came from Apartheid South Africa or from Australia. Sanctions, though have left South Africa destitute. An enormous number of young educated South Africans have departed for better paid, more stimulating positions in other countries. Maybe you have some in your school or university. They ( and their skills) are sorely missed in their home country. What is needed now is reconstruction. This is not going to come without education. We know that your governments are not going to spend their voters tax money on developing education structures in our country. What we are looking now is a scheme whereby those same Universities and schools can do something positive to help schools in one small part of Southern Africa. In the Western Cape we have established a network of schools that is linked through the University of Cape Town to the Internet. At present only a few schools are linked up (13 out of +/- 200 schools in Cape Town). These schools are mainly the more afluent schools who have the finance and the expertise to do it. We are trying to get more of the disadvantaged schools to link up but the funds are not available. The administrators are not aware of the potential that the Internet has to assist in Education especially where the quantity (and quality) of teaching teaching staff may be seriously lacking. What we are asking for is this:

We want every student at every school and university to experience for one day what it is like to be a student in Africa. They can go one day without food. They then take the money they would have spent on lunch that day and send it to a fund that can assist us here in the Western Cape to link up more schools onto the Internet. Some of the remoter schools will require satelite or radio links for their modems, but every cent that your schools send will go directly to schools that desperatly need communication with the outside world in order to educate their children. Once the connections have been made, you can follow the progress of "your" school to assist further with thieir development. Let us all help to keep the light burning in Africa, before it is too late.

If you are interested in helping with this project E-Mail me at my school address. We need people in different countries to co-ordinate our efforts.

David Rogers


Tel +27 21 557 3463         Address Table View High School
Tel +27 21 557 7779                 Table View
                                    Cape Town
                                    South Africa

Internet Work: David@TVHS.WCape.School.za
         Home: David@Rogers.Wcape.School.za


From: "Arthur R. McGee" 
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: Re: South Africa/Postings on INternet Policies
From: c6460101@idptv.idbsu.edu (Arthur Galus)
Subject: NOVAE>> GROUP>>  SEPTEMBER 5-9, 1994  FILE 2
To: novae-projects@crow.csrv.uidaho.edu
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 18:58:15 -0600 (MDT)

Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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