TEKEDU NGO will implement a five months project that will contribute to the level of ICT Education of children, aged between 11 and 17, from 3 residential homes in Moldova, thus increasing their participation through online presence. The NGO will organise theoretical and motivational presentations, delivered by bloggers, IT freelancers and social entrepreneurs from Moldova. After 2 months of presentation we will launch a mentorship programme for children to receive additional knowledge on how to create their own blog and how to administrate it.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Chisinau
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
Youth power project will involve around 100 children from 3 residential homes in Moldova, aged between 11 and 17. Our mission as an NGO is to empower children in residential homes for ICT Education, thus we aim to provide opportunities for a better future for one of the most vulnerable category of children, children without parental care. We have organized previously educational events in residential homes and we have noticed a high level of interest that children have towards computer science, website creation and blogging. This project aims to increase the low level of computer and internet familiarity through both theoretical and practical experiences. Together with practical knowledge about how to create their own blog, children will have a chance to be heard and reach more people.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Project co-ordinator – Mihaela Iurascu
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mihaela.iurascu
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=46424481&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile
Project assistant – Abayomi Ogundipe
F: https://www.facebook.com/abayomi.ogundipe?fref=ts
L: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=44416471&locale=en_US&trk=tyah&trkInfo=tarId%3A1397505167907%2Ctas%3Aaba%2Cidx%3A2-2-3
T: https://twitter.com/Abayomi_baba
Project accountant – Ana Ganenco
F: https://www.facebook.com/ana.ganenka?fref=ts
Project advisor – Sandra Cavallo
F: https://www.facebook.com/sandra.l.cavallo?fref=ts
T: https://twitter.com/search?q=sandra%20cavallo&src=typd
Blog: http://chisinauseriously.wordpress.com/
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The aim of the project is to provide technical knowledge on blog creation for children in 3 residential homes in Moldova and make these children heard through their own blogs.
At the end of the project we expect to launch minimum 10 blogs of children addressing various topics (e.g. the reality of their institution, their opinion about issues in our community and worldwide, their dreams and aspirations etc.).
The project team together with the mentors will help children design and update their blogs by constantly proposing new topics to develop.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
We have already developed several partnerships for content delivery the main partner being BEST (Board of European Students on Technology). BEST Chisinau will involve in providing trainers to deliver theoretical sessions and mentors to support children involved.
Another partnership which we intent to develop is the one with Peace Corps. There are Peace Corps volunteers working in all regions of Moldova and having good background and knowledge of Romanian. We intend to involve Peace Corps volunteers to become mentors.
Together with content related partnership we plan to establish collaborations with media partners to help us promote the project and corporate partners to donate towards the further development of the project.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
We have planned to involve around 100 children from 3 residential homes in Moldova. We base our objective on our previous collaboration with these institution and the positive feedback from the events organized in the past. We will establish official partnerships with the residential homes which will host the project activities and will work hand in hand with the administration and the informatics teachers in order to plan the detailed time line of the project and ensure promotion and time availability of children to participate in the activities of the project.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
Our content partners will deliver theoretical sessions on how to create and manage a wordpress blog. The theoretical sessions will focus on Wordpress platform management, basic design skills and online communication principles.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
As planned in the project activities, we will have theoretical presentation as the first stage of the project. At this stage we will use projector and screen for the general presentations and computers connected to internet (fiber optics), 10 computers per each residential home, 30 computers in total.
For the second stage of the project, children will use the facilities of the computer classes to communicate with their mentors. Every computer class has approximately 10 computers.
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
As mentioned above, we have already organized educational events in some residential homes from Moldova (Chisinau, Straseni) and we continue to develop our activities towards the benefit of children without parental care living in these institutions. There are more than 3200 children in leaving in residential homes in Moldova, and our engagement is to develop their knowledge of ICT through our projects.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The main challenges we see in implementing Youth Power project:
1. Lack of involvement of children in project activities
In order to prevent this from happening, we will make sure our trainers involve children in the educational system and keep communicating with the children constantly.
2. No blogs launched
In order to make sure that children have the chance to create their blogs and also benefit from the needed support, we have designed a mentoring program, for children to have constant support.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
In order to ensure that the project is implemented according to the initial planning, the project team will monitor the project activities, implementing the following:
+ weekly meetings (a weekly report will be presented by the project co-ordinator and the team will evaluate the previous week activities and plan the activities for the following week; the team will use Gantt Chart to track the implementation of the project).
+ Budget tracking
The quantitative indicators which will demonstrate the success of the project activities are:
+ Number of bloggers, IT freelancers and social entrepreneurs involved in the presentations in schools.
+ Number of institutions involved
+ Number of children involved in the mentorship programme
+ Number of new blogs launched
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
I. Project preparation (August 2014)
Activities:
+ Identifying bloggers and IT specialists who are willing to deliver presentations in residential homes in Chisinau
+ Establishing partnerships with the residential homes to host the project
II. Project implementation (September – November 2014)
Presentations in 3 residential homes (September – October 2014)
The presentations will be delivered by bloggers, social entrepreneurs who develop an online business and IT freelancers. We will conduct 2 weeks presentation in each schools and the topics addressed will be:
+ how to create a blog (technical knowledge)
+ how to promote your idea using a blog
+ what are the advantages of having a blog and being online active
Mentorship programme (November 2014)
The mentorship programme will involve the facilitators of the presentations in schools and the children who prove their motivation and knowledge to create their own blog.
III. Project evaluation (December 2014)
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Personnel:
Project co-ordinator
$ 200/month* 5 months = $ 1000
The payment for the work of the project assistant and the accountant will be covered from the budget of the organisation.
Travel
$200
Equipment
Projector: $200
Projector Screen : $200
For the good implementation of the project, we need to have the proper equipment which the residential homes don’t have.
Direct costs
Domain and hosting (.md) for the bloggs website
$70/year* 1 year = $70
Participants outputs ($3 * 100) = $300
Project banner = $100
Wordpress theme = $65
Supplies
Flipcharts (set) $ 10/ set *6 = $ 60
Paper A4 (10 *$5) = $ 50
Markers (30 * $1) = $30
Other office supplies ($10/month *5) = $50
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
In order for us to achieve maximum impact related to the project visibility, we would kindly ask Rising Voices to promote the new launched blogs and help the children reach more and more people with their stories.
Contact name
Mihaela Iurascu
Organization
TEKEDU
