I borrowed the title from Arthur C Clarke as quoted in this presentation. If you’re interested in the use of technology with children and young people this film is fascinating. The first couple of minutes, less so, but watch on and see what happens when you stick a computer in a wall and leave it for a few months for children living in poverty to play with!

Also very interesting is the idea of one computer for many children being beneficial - rather than what I think most of us would expect - one computer per user. Lots in here to give thoughts for anyone involved in supporting young people to understand and use technology - and examples of peer education in its purest form.

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Tags: innovation, Innovation & Technology, poverty, social media, youth work 2.0

In low income areas that is. In what the Observer calls a ‘controversial move’ Oxford University will guarantee an interview for young people that have achieved good enough grades and that live in a deprived area. The University will take into account the schools performance that the applicant attended, as well as whether they spent any time in care and if they attended any programmes for ‘disadvantaged children’, in addition to checking postcodes to confirm if they live in a deprived area.

The scheme is controversial because it may disadvantage young people from middle and high income areas, but the University Director of Undergraduate Admissions says “I want to make sure that, if students are applying from places that have very few people progressing into higher education, we recognise that they are breaking the mould.”

I sympathise a little with those that think it provides an unfair bias against better off young people in so far as (more…)

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Tags: Education & Skills, poverty

Here’s a couple of films from the brilliantly talented people at Bold Creative…..

The first is  ‘Dillons Story’ - a young boy living in poverty.

The second is ‘It Ain’t Disneyland’ - quite an inspiring story about young people in Tower Hamlets taking the lead in trying to rebuild their community.

You can see more of their stuff over on their site. I hope they do more animations soon!

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Tags: environment, film, poverty

I wrote a few weeks ago about the Grace Orphan Project in Zomba, Malawi and that we had offered to sponsor some of the children so that they can go to School. Well I’m very pleased that today we’ve agreed to support 10 children to go to school including covering the costs of their school uniforms, text books and extra tuition.

I’ll post updates on how this progresses later in the year.

The cost for each childs school fee is an average of £21 a year! Not a lot to us but if you consider that the average wage in Malawi is about 80 pence a day (£24 month) then relatively thats a very large amount and for children without parents there may be nobody to provide any kind of financial assistance.

We’d like to support more children in the future so we’re on the look out for any kinds of donations towards this. All money donated will be used directly for the work of the Grace Project - if you’d like to make a donation send us an email to info@yomo.co.uk

Update:

I’ve set up a group on facebook: “I’ll give up 1 thing to help a child in Malawi go to School for a Year”

Something that really affects you when you’re out there is that you eat in a restaurant - a meal that is very average by our standards - but you think all of the time that the food you leave is much more than the children you’ve been with will get to eat. So the idea of the group is to give up something for a short period of time - it can be a luxury - chocolate, expensive drinks & so on, but give it up for a short time and put the money you would have spent to one side and then send it over to us and we’ll make sure its used to support the children involved in the Grace project. Its a small gesture but I can’t emphasise enough that its something that will make a very big difference - its a very simple way of investing in people to help themselves. If you’re not on facebook you can still do it anyway!

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Tags: Africa & Overseas, child rights, poverty

Some more interviews with children involved with the Grace Orphan Project in Zomba, Malawi. Mussa (12) and Simple (13) are two of the nicest young people I’ve ever met - if they were in this country we’d have jumped at the chance to get them volunteering with us. As it is its probably more worthwhile that they’re talents are put to use to help the Grace project develop - lets hope they get the opportunities they will need to develop their education and stay involved….

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Karibu means ‘welcome’ in Swahili. I don’t know its exact meaning in Chichewa (Malawian language), but when one of the staff at the school in Zomba said Karibu I was pretty sure he was inviting me over to share their meal (lets hope so because thats what I did!).

We’d just come out of the pool and it was dark (in Malawi it turns pitch black so quickly its almost like the lights have been turned off) - so just out of the pool in the darkness, and I can see two men and one calls over “karibu”. So over I go, and I see they have a plate of nsima and a bowl of beans.

Nsima is a bit like a thick porridge or loose mashed potatoe, its a mix made from maize which is the staple food of Malawi. I’d had nsima before - its not very exciting - you roll a small (more…)

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Tags: breakfast, poverty, Society & Issues

Fenny is one of the children involved with the Grace Orphan Project and is the first of the children who kindly agreed to do an interview with us last month.

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Having been up all night mostly cursing our DVD copying faclities I decided to take the day off today which gave me chance to finish off the report we promised to provide the Grace Orphan & Disabled Care Group in Malawi following our recent visit out to them.

While out there we did a series of film interviews with some of the children which we’ll try & get online soon. These along with some of the group development training and general activity days helped us to get a much deeper understanding of both the children and the group than we gained last year.

The group itself is now meeting on its own land which has been fenced off. This is a huge step forward from last year when the group were meeting under a tree next to somebodys house! They still have a long way to go though and much like the name of their Manager they need to travel step by step’ (Ernest Pondeponde is the Manager - ponde ponde means step by step!), (the neighboring town is called Pondebwino - step carefully!).

Just like any community group in the UK the group has a committee, and much like (more…)

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Tags: Africa & Overseas, poverty