Helping Others - Education

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### Helping others: Education: (page created November 2007)

## Kinkajou Design Journal , http://www.designthatmatters.org/k2/

Project Motivation and Background: One in five adults worldwide does not know how to read. In rural regions of West Africa, up to 75% of the population is illiterate. According to Barbara Garner of the World Education Organization, "It's the lack of resources"—specifically access to books and lighting—rather than the lack of interest in education that contributes to these numbers.

To date, more than 100 students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Cambridge University (UK), and Babson University have contributed to the business planning, design and field testing of a solution since the project’s inception as a DtM design challenge in spring 2002.

A night-time women's literacy course in rural Mali [World Education Organization]

See more pictures from World Education's classrooms. http://www.designthatmatters.org/proto_portfolio/portable_library/bg_classroom.html

- Posted by Timothy Prestero at Fri 05 Mar 2004:

DtM, World Education Partner with US AID for Kinkajou Pilot Test

The United States Agency for International Development has partnered with Design that Matters and World Education in support of a Mali-based pilot test of the Kinkajou Portable Library and Projection System. The partnership is through USAID’s Global Development Alliance program.

Under the agreement, USAID will contribute funding (approximately $500,000) and technical support to the 24-month pilot that will test the projector in 45 adult literacy classes across Mali starting in January 2005. The pilot will enhance the learning experience of 1,500 men and women enrolled in community-based adult literacy classes across Mali.

More broadly, the goals for this pilot are threefold:
# Increase access to education by increasing the capacity of educators to teach at night
# Enhance motivation and learning—and thus educational efficiency—via the use of a new educational technology appropriate to developing countries that can be used not only in the educational sector but in all sector that do community education, including agriculture, health, and environment
# To model an economic development process of shifting the production and ongoing support and maintenance of new technologies to local manufacturers and entrepreneurs.

- Posted by Timothy Prestero at Fri 05 Mar 2004 | Comments (0)

Project Status: We are currently conducting a six-month pedagogical test of 45 Kinkajou Microfilm Projectors with our partner World Education in night-time adult literacy classrooms across rural Mali. Also in Mali, Ashoka Fellow Maria Kieta Diarra and her colleagues at the Institute for Popular Education (IEP) are evaluating the Kinkajou for use in primary school education . Finally, in Bangladesh, Ashoka Fellow Muhammad Ibrahim and his colleagues at the Center for Mass Education in Science (CMES) are evaluating the Kinkajou for use in their 500 village basic schools .

The design under test is our fourth-generation "delta" prototype, representing the work of over 180 volunteers including students from MIT, Stanford, Worcester Polytechnic, Harvard, Tufts, Babson, Stanford and Cambridge University (UK) and professional volunteers from Fisher-Price, Optikos and Chipwrights.

The Kinkajou Microfilm Projector: Fourth-Generation or "Delta" Prototype Assembly, Including 12v Power Pack and 12W Solar Panel

Kinkajou in a night-time adult literacy classroom, Kati, Mali

Demonstrating image size outside a classroom in Digani, Mali

The Kinkajou Microfilm Projector, All-Ages Community Literacy Course, Kemon, Benin, 08 August 2003 http://www.designthatmatters.org/field-journal/archives/000095.html

Bengladesh: Demonstrating the Kinkajou in a typical primary school classroom

As we collect user feedback from field testing, we continue to develop the Kinkajou project along the following lines:

Identify additional users and markets for Kinkajou Projector - in addition to researching other organizations running night-time adult literacy courses, we are working to identify additional adult education markets (including technical training and health education), as well as applications in small-scale businesses, for example as a marketing tool for micro-enterprise.

Develop a low-cost, renewable power supply - the current solar panel and battery power supply developed for the World Education test is far too expensive for volume production. Our specific need is for a low-cost, 5-7W (or 15-21 W-hr/day) off-grid power supply. The Kinkajou is representative of a range of useful low-power appliances for underserved communities in developing countries, from medical devices to teaching tools, that appear slightly too big for a Freeplay radio-style hand-crank, and very small to justify the expense of a major solar power installation. [Read the Kinkajou Power Supply Design Challenge Summary http://www.designthatmatters.org/k2/docs/Design Challenge Summary - Kinkajou Power Supply.pdf ]

Investigate the feasibility of a Multimedia Projector - As an extension of the microfilm projector design, DtM is currently studying the technical and economic feasibility of developing a low-cost multimedia display device as a stand-alone or as a companion product to a PC as a teaching tool and curriculum enhancement for underserved communities, primarily in developing countries. As a baseline, DtM is requesting assistance in reviewing the current situation and trends in commercially available data projectors. We are also interested in exploring design concepts that would enable lower cost with adequate functionality for the developing world. Desired features include low lifetime cost of ownership, meaning (a) low initial cost, (b) long life, (c) low maintenance costs and (d) low cost of lighting and other consumables. The resulting design must be maintainable on a local basis. [Read the Multimedia Projector Design Challenge Summary ]

Kinkajou Video Available On-Line: SolidWorks, a DtM sponsor, has produced a five-minute video about the Kinkajou Microfilm Projector project, which includes interviews with DtM staff and students and footage from last summer's field test with the beta prototype in West Africa. This is a good overall introduction to the project and our objectives. A compressed copy of the video is available on-line here (10 MB Windows Media File) http://www.solidworks.com/swexpress/mar04/media/Design_matters.wmv . Contact Design that Matters, info@designthatmatters.org for a high-resolution DVD or VHS copy.

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## Discrimination against girls 'still deeply entrenched', By Terri Judd and Harriet Griffey, Published: 15 May 2007 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article2542406.ece

Almost 100 million girls "disappear" each year, killed in the womb or as babies, a study has revealed.

The report, "Because I am a Girl", exposes the gender discrimination which remains deeply entrenched and widely tolerated across the world, including the fact that female foeticide is on the increase in countries where a male child remains more valued.

The report highlights the fact that two million girls a year still suffer genital mutilation, half a million die during pregnancy - the leading killer among 15 to 19-year-olds - every 12 months and an estimated 7.3 million are living with HIV/Aids compared with 4.5 million young men. Almost a million girls fall victim to child traffickers each year compared with a quarter that number of boys.

Of the 1.5 billion people living on less than 50p a day, 70 per cent are female, with 96 million young women aged 15 to 24 unable to read or write - almost double the number for males.

While many of the most shocking figures in the Plan International report relate to developing nations, sexual discrimination is still prevalent in the north.

In the UK, two women a week are killed by current or former partners. The country also has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe and having a baby at a young age means women are more likely to miss out on education and slip into poverty. There has also been a substantial rise in obesity in young girls in the UK.

While girls in Britain often outperform boys in school, they are still victims of discrimination in the workplace. The report points out that a recent study found they were still woefully underrepresented in the boardroom, in politics and the courts. While the pay gap between young men and women is 3.7 per cent, it rises to 10.7 per cent for those in their thirties.

"Even if you look at the UK, life is still difficult for some minority girls," said Marie Staunton, chief executive of Plan UK. "More girls are going to university but then it flattens off. They have broken through the marble ceiling into management but not through the glass ceiling into the boardroom."

The "Because I am a Girl" campaign launched today highlights discrimination and will work towards improving gender equality worldwide. Designed to run until 2015, the campaign will also follow the lives of 125 girls born in 2006 until their ninth birthday. Today's report is the first in a series of nine studies by Plan International - a global child development agency.

Statistics show that 62 million girls are not even receiving primary school education while an estimated 450 million have stunted growth because of childhood malnutrition. "Why, in an era that saw the term 'girl power' coined, are millions of girls being condemned to a life of inequality and poverty?" the report asks.

Graça Machel, the children's rights campaigner from Mozambique, said: "The study shows that our failure to make an equal, more just world has resulted in the most intolerable of situations. To discriminate on the basis of sex and gender is morally indefensible; it is economically, politically and socially unsupportable."

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