User:Paul~enwikiversity

My name is Paul and I would like to tell you a little about myself and how I got involved in Abaya School in Ethiopia. Two years ago I was invited to help with the setting up and running of the Arba Minch Festival of a Thousand Stars http://www.gughe.org/. Arba Minch is a city located in the province SNNPS (Southern Nations Nationalities and People's State) in South Ethiopia. Through my involvement in the festival I got to know the head teacher, staff and pupils of Abaya School, also in Arba Minch. I returned the following year to see if I could help the school and discovered that they have 2210 pupils and fewer books than I have in my office. I did what I was able to do during that visit which was a drop in the ocean. I managed to get a few hundred random books shipped to them with the help of the British Council and bought them some much needed equipment. Books, however, are not practical due to the remoteness of the region and the high cost of shipping. I promised to return this year and try to take the project forward. I have invested in a 320MG portable drive and my idea was to fill it with Wikiversity and related content. Teachers are currently relying on memories of books they borrowed during their training to develop lessons. My vision is to make Wikiversity available to them. They have two good computers and I am hoping to take some laptops with me. There is no internet connection and one is probably not going to be available in the foreseeable future due to political constraints, and technical problems like the lack of phone lines and unreliable electricity source. I am not well educated myself and my computer skills are somewhat limited. For this reason I need help in deciding what to download and how to achieve it.