realpaladin
Master Poster
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2007
- Messages
- 2,585
I have a somewhat strange request. Bear with me along the long intro.
In my travels, and choices of work, I ended up in West-Bengal India somewhere end of 2008.
Being a gung-ho kind of person I have lived in slums, mountain huts, rural villages etc.
I could not resist playing McGyver at each of these places and apply what I know of DIY and science to help people make a little electricity, improve their ad-hoc way of distributing things (one idea of making our own high voltage transport was not so good; it made a good few sparks before the mains shut the line down...), show how a parabolic mirror made from crisps packaging can boil water so it is safe(r) to drink.
While that was good fun, I was stunned at what happened when I did one particular 'trick'.
I used a cheap flaslight, some wires and strips of aluminium and sellotape to make a crude version of http://www.brikkerogbrett.com/games/multi-elektro2.shtml
One side had pictures of things (a horse, a car, water, fire, food) cut from papers and magazines and the other side had the words in bengali/nepalese/english written.
The flaslight I stuffed into a doll's head and the kids loved it.
When I returned to that village two weeks later I was amazed to find that there were dozens of the 'game' around and that even adults 'played' with it.
What happened, I learned, was that some older people who could not read or write also 'played' and asked the people I was with for more words.
They then started to make more, as they had watched me make the question/answer sheets. And while doing that, they taught others how to make them.
Well, people started trading them with each other and some got 'recycled' with new scraps of pictures and words on them.
So, that got me thinking.
These area's might be hard to reach for any government program or educational institute, either because of geology or because of extreme poverty.
I then started some efforts in getting a project off the ground with support of the government (I am not done yet, although I have a lot of good supportive comments and pledges).
We have the promise of using a government satellite channel to broadcast educational programs that follow my(*) 'peer-to-peer' education concept.
What I am in need now of, is content, i.e. videos showing without words how to make something, or how to experience/learn something, in such a fashion that it can be taught to the next person.
The subjects are fairly basic; arithmetic, hygiene, cattle, health... basics we do not even have to think about because we get them introduced to us at a very young age.
I have an opening in trying this not only in India, but later also in Rwanda and Ghana.
So, if any of you could spare me some instructional video's, please PM me for my email addy, so we can have a more direct talk about it.
(*): I say 'my' because it occurred to me, but I have no single pretense as to claiming it just being my idea or my property at all.
In my travels, and choices of work, I ended up in West-Bengal India somewhere end of 2008.
Being a gung-ho kind of person I have lived in slums, mountain huts, rural villages etc.
I could not resist playing McGyver at each of these places and apply what I know of DIY and science to help people make a little electricity, improve their ad-hoc way of distributing things (one idea of making our own high voltage transport was not so good; it made a good few sparks before the mains shut the line down...), show how a parabolic mirror made from crisps packaging can boil water so it is safe(r) to drink.
While that was good fun, I was stunned at what happened when I did one particular 'trick'.
I used a cheap flaslight, some wires and strips of aluminium and sellotape to make a crude version of http://www.brikkerogbrett.com/games/multi-elektro2.shtml
One side had pictures of things (a horse, a car, water, fire, food) cut from papers and magazines and the other side had the words in bengali/nepalese/english written.
The flaslight I stuffed into a doll's head and the kids loved it.
When I returned to that village two weeks later I was amazed to find that there were dozens of the 'game' around and that even adults 'played' with it.
What happened, I learned, was that some older people who could not read or write also 'played' and asked the people I was with for more words.
They then started to make more, as they had watched me make the question/answer sheets. And while doing that, they taught others how to make them.
Well, people started trading them with each other and some got 'recycled' with new scraps of pictures and words on them.
So, that got me thinking.
These area's might be hard to reach for any government program or educational institute, either because of geology or because of extreme poverty.
I then started some efforts in getting a project off the ground with support of the government (I am not done yet, although I have a lot of good supportive comments and pledges).
We have the promise of using a government satellite channel to broadcast educational programs that follow my(*) 'peer-to-peer' education concept.
What I am in need now of, is content, i.e. videos showing without words how to make something, or how to experience/learn something, in such a fashion that it can be taught to the next person.
The subjects are fairly basic; arithmetic, hygiene, cattle, health... basics we do not even have to think about because we get them introduced to us at a very young age.
I have an opening in trying this not only in India, but later also in Rwanda and Ghana.
So, if any of you could spare me some instructional video's, please PM me for my email addy, so we can have a more direct talk about it.
(*): I say 'my' because it occurred to me, but I have no single pretense as to claiming it just being my idea or my property at all.
