Botswana

UNV Volunteers, volunteers from George Mason University, and others serving under the UNITeS coalition, have undertaken a range of activities in Botswana, including supporting the national Botswana WorLD programme to introduce ICT tools for improved learning in a group of secondary schools, training the staff of the Botswana Girl Guides Association and its affiliates on using basic communication and computer skills, and supporting an organization that provides technology resources to allow people to access and utilize information in pursuit of learning about entrepreneurship development.

The World Links for Development Program (WorLD) Programme, managed by the World Bank, helped countries to develop sustainable solutions for mobilizing the equipment, training, educational resources and school-to-school partnerships required to bring students in developing countries online and into the global community. Through ICT, it linked students and teachers in secondary schools in developing countries with their counterparts in industrialized countries and elsewhere, for collaborative research, teaching and learning projects. In Botswana, UNITeS supported the national WorLD programme, in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education, with an international UNV, acting as an ICT technical specialist, assisting in the technical coordination strategy for all the WorLD schools in the country, establishing a timeline for operations, and setting communication links between regions and identifies equipment and connectivity options.

Within the framework of the UNITeS/ WorLD Links for Development Programme, volunteers from George Mason University assisted in the training and development of representatives from UNITeS/ WorLD-assisted schools in all technical-related aspects of the programme. This included establishing communication links between the schools, designing school websites, identifying various Internet connectivity options and recommending appropriate ICT equipment for the schools. One volunteers served as the ICT Intern for the Ministry of Education (February - March 2002).

Two volunteers from George Mason University trained the staff of the Botswana Girl Guides Association and its affiliates, and the staff, leaders and members of the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), on using basic communication and computer skills. The volunteer offered support to the organization through developing the website, identifying appropriate ICT facilities to improve systems of communication, and preparing promotional materials for the resource mobilization efforts (June - August 2002).

Enterprise Botswana (EB) provides technology resources to allow clients to access and utilize information in pursuit of learning about entrepreneurship development. A volunteer from George Mason University assisted in managing the creation and the content of EB's web presence through gathering content for the site and creating documents and graphics to implement on the web. The volunteer managed the web server's storage of files and directory structure, providing training on the above mentioned (February - May 2002).

Read more about UNITeS partnerships with universities