Hey there!

Welcome to the blog of the OLPCorps Kenya! We are a group of 22, including eight students, from Burke Presbyterian Church in Burke, VA. I'm Kate Tidaback, and I'll be the one doing the majority of the blogging on this site. I just finished my sophomore year at the College of William & Mary. The seven other students participating in this project are Greg Gates (sophomore, Virginia Tech), Brooke Postlewaite (senior, James Madison University), Krista Yancey (junior, Bucknell University), Eric Fischer (freshman, Oberlin College), Lindsay Kipp (junior, Radford University), Bill Lesser (sophomore, Northern Virginia Community College), and Stryker Smith (sophomore, Lake Braddock High School). The other members of the team come from all walks of life, including an elementary school teacher and a CPA. We are all so thrilled to be taking part in this amazing project and are excited to be reporting back to all of you who are reading this!

On June 30, our team will be leaving the US to go to Kibwezi, Kenya until July 30. The focus of our trip & project is the Kibwezi Educational Centre. The center contains a preschool, a Polytechnic school, and primary school for grades one through eight. The 400 students enrolled there range in age from 6 to 12 and come from the surrounding farms. This is our second deployment of the XO Computers to the primary school after we brought six over last summer, obtained through the Give-One-Get-One (G1G1) program. This year, we're ecstatic to be bringing over 100 more laptops to give to the kids! What better way to celebrate our 21st year in partnership with Kibwezi :)

Over the course of the next few months, we hope to use this as a way to update you on the project, share preliminary planning and travel information, and show you some of the great things we're doing. Stay tuned for notes from training sessions, meetings, and more information on the OLPC Program.

Thank you so much for being a part of this :)

-Kate