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Where there is no Tech Support:
A Practical Guide for PCVs working with Information Technology


Peace Corps The Gambia · 2001 · By Marc Maxson


The following pages of the IT manual have been written by Marc Maxson. While Peace Corps may be mentioned, the views expressed are Marc Maxson's views and not necessarily those of Peace Corps.


Table of Contents:

Chapter 1:   Introduction
      What do IT/Computer volunteers do?

Chapter 2:   Challenges
      What major obstacles will you face?

Chapter 3:   Vision of the Future
      Where do you see IT in Africa in 10 years?
      Sustainability
    Make 'working yourself out of a job your number one goal!

Chapter 4:   Resources
      Seeking out the right counterparts

Chapter 5:   Peer Training Practice


Chapter 6:   Technical Training


Chapter 7:   Peer Lectures
Topics requested by the volunteers

Chapter 8:   Notes on Model School


Chapter 9:   The Practical Portion of this Book


Appendix I:        Other Reading Materials
Excerpts from Peace Corps 2000 Project Status Reports
News clippings
IT Survey Results (conducted August 2000)
Computer Education Syllabus
Introduction:
Welcome to The Gambia. I hope you brought a screwdriver and a sense of humor because both are about to be used heavily for the next two years.
        The Gambia, a "sliver of a nation located inside Senegal" according to CNN, is the most densely populated country in West Africa. It boasts eighteen senior secondary schools, four ferry crossings, and two ice cream parlors in walking distance from the Peace Corps Office.
        Its only copious resource is people. Things are safe and quiet here. Some have speculated that those two facts are related - the lack of mineral resources has prevented wars from breaking out here like they did in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau.
        This manual was written to provide information about the sorts of issues you might face in developing information and computer technology in The Gambia. It should reinforce the primary concepts of Peace Corps training, clarifying that volunteers work to build sustainable, human-centered, projects that transfer skills and thus build capacity to fight poverty, disease, and end dependency.
This manual contains six thousand words devoted to theory but I intended it to be practical. If you don't use this manual or apply its lessons after training then I failed. It will also raise controversial issues in a candid matter so as to prepare you for the road ahead. Some of your beliefs about what Peace Corps is all about will be challenged by the chapter on sustainability. Talk about your feelings and beliefs during training; you won't gather together as a group after you swear in, so make the most of your few weeks.
If you are not a volunteer but you are reading this manual, please read on. If you find this manual helpful, then share it with others. This book will only be valuable if people use it.
        And finally, you are the best judge of the sort of training you are getting. If you find your technical training to lack crucial elements, encourage them to cover those topics! This manual is a guideline, and probably an outdated one at that.

        Toodles,
        Marc Maxson
First Edition Editor
PCV 1999-2001

Chapter 1: What do IT/Computer Volunteers do?

        Session 1: Introduction
        Session 2: Problems

Before we lay out the specifics of your job, it might help you to keep a few things in mind about Peace Corps. Volunteers have three goals: (1) To transfer skills to the people in other countries; (2) To help others learn about America; (3) To learn about other cultures. This job description is purely about goal number one. I assume goals number two and three are explained elsewhere.

Describing your job is difficult because every volunteer has a different experience. People tackle problems in different ways. After you start working, you may find that you have to make it up as you go along. You can be sure the job won't be what you expect, but you can make it what you want, and what will work.
This book doesn't contain "How To" information about your job. What it contains are general guidelines you will need to follow to ensure your projects continue after you leave. Consequently, a good place to begin is by examining the past. You will have a chance to read about the work of past volunteers and interview current volunteers in your first training session. Pay close attention to the reasons why a particular idea succeeded or failed.
This session will answer a lot of questions about what you will actually be doing. Other Peace Corps Volunteers are the best source of information. Even though you are among the first bona fide "IT Specialists" Peace Corps has ever invited to The Gambia, volunteers have been working with computers for the past five years. Below are summaries of some past volunteer projects:
  1. Andrew Lyons (1991-1995) - Andrew worked for an unprecedented 4 years: 1 teaching and 3 with the Ministry of Education Book Production Unit. He designed a computerized system for tracking 400,000 textbooks and advised the ministry on long term planning. He taught his counterparts to use the computer tracking system. He also designed a searchable database of local languages for Peace Corps training and showed the staff how to use it.
         Seven years later, providing students with books is still a problem. But he foresaw these obstacles. "The project has not been supported by the upper echelon of the [Education] Ministry. There is no reliable system of distribution, money collection, communication, monitoring and enforcement of policies does not exist…. I cannot see how [this project] will ever be sustainable in this country."
  2. Sunil Gupta (1994-1996) - Sunil taught math and science in St. Peters and ran the computer lab. He primarily taught computers at the school and trained people in the town of Lamin to use them. Sunil felt that his training would have been aided by more compters, but was vague about any other insights. He was replaced by 2 more volunteers who filled the same position as a computer teacher.
  3. Ben Hadary (1994-1996) - Ben Hadary spent two years reviewing 10,000 pages of courtroom documents to publish the The Gambia Law Review - 1994. He used computers to do his work and strongly advocated more computer education to make the legal system more efficient. However, much of his efforts were hindered by the coincident 1994 coup d'etat which brought Yahya Jammeh to power.
  4. Darren Gates (g8z@hotmail.com) (1997-1999)- Darren came to teach biology at St. Peters but soon found greater satisfaction running the computer lab of recycled USAID computers. In his second year he traveled around the country repairing computers and upgrading software. His ghost haunts sites all over the country; people will mention him. He was successful in helping a lot of people and popularizing computers but failed to train anyone to fix or maintain computers. His project was not sustainable.
  5. James Gliedt (1997-1999) - Micah taught chemistry at Farafenni SSS and produced a lab manual. He built a chemistry lab. He also used a SPA fund to renovate a room for a new computer lab and received or built 17 computers from various sources, largely due the efforts of previous PCV Abhijit Chartergee, who requested the computers. Although he tried to train a few teachers, his counterpart did not continue work in the lab long after Micah left. His counterpart failed to train a replacement before leaving. Micah noted in his final report that repairing computers is a major problem in Farafenni due to lack of expertise and parts.
  6. Michelle Elsbury (1997-1999) - Michelle was first at the Book Production Unit for the Gambia but quickly switched out to develop a resource center at a large, urban primary school (Sukuta: 2500 pupils). She set up the library and procured a computer through World Wise Schools from Hawaii. She identified and trained two people in both computer and library skills and coordinated with Dexter to make the project sustainable. Michelle's greatest challenge was keeping the people she had trained at the school. "In my professional teaching opinion, it is difficult to establish and create programs beneficial to the school and community (and Peace Corps) if the Teachers can be transferred at any given time." The DOSE attempted to transfer both her counterparts.
  7. Gwynne Burch (1997-1999) - Gwynne spent most of his two years trying to build a US government funded Fishery. The project collapsed after he left. In addition to his unsuccessful fishery project, he also set up a computer lab of 6 computers at Armitage boarding school. He trained 5 people. However, by the time the next volunteer arrived the computer lab was disassembled and required a lot of work to get it running again.
  8. Julianne Zuber (1998-2000) - Julie came to teach science at Pakalinding Junior Secondary School. She rehabilitated the school's computer and then, noting a need for computer literacy in her school, worked on getting more. By the end of her service, Julie had built a computer lab of 9 computers and had tried training 6 people.
         She stated in her final report that her greatest obstacle was getting the six teachers to come to free computer classes, and convincing the administration to pay a computer teacher to replace her. Convincing the school to hire a computer teacher ultimately required intervention from the regional education office and Peace Corps. She had to change her intended replacement a few times before finally choosing Action Aid secretary Sohna Sanneh and training her in managing a lab. One year later, the lab is still functioning.
  9. Dexter Reid (1998-2000) – Dexter Replaced Darren at St. Peters and trained a group of students to repair and maintain computers. His group of Teacher Assistants (TAs) taught the community computer classes at the school and twice traveled to other parts of the country to fix computers. He also trained them in HTML well enough to get them good jobs with local computer businesses.
  10. Margaret Grant (1997-2001) – Dr. Margaret worked with the Bansang DHT 2 years, teaching people to record and analyze health statistics using a computer. She then moved to the Ministry of Health to work on a grand scale. She also organized the first workshop to train school and government office workers about basic computer maintenance, a project that was continued for a second year by Jeremy Barber. Finally realizing her worth, she left Peace Corps and stayed a fourth year to help the Ministry of Health, but as a paid consultant, not a volunteer.
  11. Marc Maxson (1999-2001) – I was placed at Gambia High School in Banjul to teach science. However, seeing that they didn't need me, I switched to working with all the Banjul Senior Secondary Schools to integrate computers into the curriculum. I helped build labs and train students and teachers at four schools, conducted a survey of computer resources in the country, and help organize a curriculum development workshop. I also wrote this manual (which APCD Yamai edited, bless her heart).
  12. Jackie Francy (1999-2000) – Jackie taught science at Tahir SSS in Mansa Konko and worked to get over 30 computers sent to this country. She contacted donor organizations in the states and collaborated with Computers for The World, GambiaHELP, and a computer Link organization to popularize computer communication in both countries. However, after a falling out with the principal of Tahir, she moved to Rural Development Institute and built another lab for community education. She left before training a permanent replacement at RDI.
  13. Clara Soh (1999-2001) – Clara trained health workers in using computers for statistical analysis and disease surveillance and focused on developing a health education curriculum. In her first year she created a database to track pharmaceutical usage and compare disease surveillance results to the amount of drugs that were distributed and the retired receipts. After this work was stolen from her office, she decided to concentrate her efforts on education and wrote a basic Gambia-specific manual for learning computers. She also participated in training workshops across the country.
  14. Hethur McKinley (1999-2001) – Hethur taught computers at Farafenni SSS and trained some students and teachers to run the lab. Most of her efforts were hampered by serious electrical problems in the town (voltage fluctuates from 150v-170v when it should be 220v). She complained of ethnic differences within the school staff as a major impediment to cooperation on the computer lab project. Fixing computers in Farafenni continues to be a serious and unresolved problem.
  15. Jeremy Barber (1999-2001) - Jeremy taught Math at Armitage SSS and worked with the administration to set up a computer lab. He fought to get a building renovated and set precedents about keeping donated computers at the school. He also trained staff in computer use and established links with sister schools in America and the UK. Jeremy also expanded Margaret's Computer Maintenance Training Workshops to three a year and clustered them in regionally.

Note: While all of these volunteers worked on different projects, each of them did some degree of roving technical computer support. You will probably travel to help train people in computer maintenance while doing a unique project at your site.

Chapter 2:
Challenges: What Obstacles Will You Face?


At this point you have some idea of the work you will be doing. Many of the obstacles have probably already surfaced in the session on what volunteers do. This discussion will help you identify problems and brainstorm ways of addressing them. Use this page as a guideline for ideas to discuss.

Infrastructure - Towns are subject to constant blackouts and the electricity is of low quality. Computers are routinely damaged by voltage fluctuations. Even when protective equipment is used, it is possible to damage computers (see chart in appendix). A UPS provides the best protection but not at the best price. An automatic voltage stabilizer (a variable voltage transformer that generates a constant voltage output) is the best value. Good stabilizers can also work with a wider range of voltages (160-260) that a UPS (180-240) but lack the battery backup. Some better computer power supplies are also designed to tolerate fluctuating current. However, a UPS battery needs to be replaced too frequently to be affordable. Surge protectors don't really protect equipment.
        Buildings are usually dusty, hot, and wet in the dry season. Roofs sometimes leak, windows sometimes lack panes, so climate is a problem.

Staff - Many people need training and trainers are scarce. Some of those trained people leave the country or at least transfer into a more lucrative job. You may need to train extra people to compensate for those who will leave. Institutions may need to offer computer people incentives to stay in their current jobs.

Computer Hardware - Computers from 1983 to the present may be found in any lab. You will see 286s, 386s, and 486s still in heavy use along with a handful of Pentium and above machines. Newer machines are generally less robust under these harsh conditions. Older (486) machines can run Win95 and good word processing software while still costing next to nothing. Operating systems are almost all DOS/Windows based. Most parts in a broken computer can be recycled when repairing other computers, and so you will need to know how to build computers. Money is scarce whenever you need to purchase parts.

Computer Software – You can't run a computer lab without software, and software is costly. Schools generally copy software from any available source. Computers generally all use the same software, thanks to the standardizing effects of piracy.

Finances - Some labs collect fees. Some students avoid paying. It can sometimes be difficult to obtain the money that computer labs generate from collected fees and use it towards repairs if it goes into the school's general funds. Schools occasionally don't pay utilities. Money in general is not plentiful regardless of the lab fees collected because of a multitude of issues.

Language – Beyond the obvious one - your students and counterparts may have great difficulty learning in English - you might not realize that the English words you use are unfamiliar to your students. You will need to use some Gambian English words in describing computers:

What you might say: What a Gambian might say:
"Turn on and Turn off" "Put it on then put it off" or "On it and Off it"
"Move the mouse over to the shortcut" "Put the mouse in the center of the shortcut"
"If you want to use a computer..." "If you want to function a computer"
"Turn Off" "Close"
"Print" and "Type" Sometimes are confused to mean "Type" and "Print," respectively

Running a Computer Lab

One of the biggest problems with computers in Africa is maintenance. Who is trained and motivated to keep computes running? Where do they get the parts?
        Well, the problem of maintenance stems from the issue of computer profitability. If you were to visit various computer labs across the country you would see some that are well maintained and some that are one disaster away from death. The well maintained labs would also be the labs where fees are charged for computer use and lab managers are compensated. In short these are the income generating labs. They operate on market principles and if they turn a profit, the labs are kept functional. Now look at the other labs. Why is maintenance a problem? It's a problem because no one has a vested interest in the lab. Now we can't just make all the labs income generating, because most students are too poor to afford computer classes and they will be denied the same opportunities for computer education as rich students; there has to be a way to keep both types of labs working.
        Now if you've just arrived from America, your first thought would be to have the government fund the labs. After all, they fund schools the schools that house the labs. I encourage you to work hard on this, but realize that the government has not yet provided a complete solution to the problems of school staffing and books, so it is not likely that the government will be the primary solution to the more costly computer problems. Labs will need to look for alternatives.
        I said that the free labs are poorly maintained because no one has a vested interest in doing maintenance. There has got to be a way to entice people to take on that responsibility. And while money is the king of motivators, a creative person like yourself could come up with some more practical incentives. Volunteers in the past have traded extra 1-on-1 computer classes, email privileges, or the right to run private for-profit computer classes in the lab to a person in exchange for maintenance responsibility. These arrangements are beneficial because they are an example for the schools to follow: Give the teacher a privilege in exchange for responsibility in doing a task. Conversely, doing the maintenance yourself without training others reinforces the current arrangement: Expect Peace Corps to deal with the computer problems.
        Because the survival of a computer lab depends on its profitability, you will need to view your lab in terms of a business. Computer labs cost money to run. Up to now, those funds have had to come from the lab itself. Even a teacher who teaches computer classes to students during school cannot be compensated by the state because computers are not part of the tracking system. So until computers become an official subject (ca. 2003), labs may need to charge students D50 per term to pay the teachers and enact minor repairs.
        Another reason computer labs fail has to deal with the perception of ownership. Many of the computer labs that are funded by a foreign donors and staffed by Peace Corps fail simply because everyone in the local community saw it as "Peace Corps' Project" and not as their own. If a principal thinks of the lab as a Peace Corps project, he will be reluctant to assist in managing. He will expect outside agencies to support the project indefinitely. He will avoid seeking out professional computer teachers to hire and pay. He will continue to undermine the lab's sustainability in many intangible ways. And unless this problem is addressed, the lab will fail.
        So how do you make the people in your community take ownership of the lab? Involve them! Involve people in every aspect of the lab's management: Attending classes, teaching classes, doing maintenance, managing finances, deciding how to wisely spend the money (which computer parts to buy), tracking Internet use, policy making, and in establishing systems to hold people and students accountable for their actions. The more people who are doing this work, the easier it will be to slip yourself out of the support structure. You need to train people in everything so that nothing will be forgotten when you leave.
        People will imitate your behavior when running a lab. If money and equipment for computers comes from a Peace Corps SPA project, your counterpart teachers will expect the money to come from a Peace Corps SPA fund. If you bring computers from the US, they will expect donated computers from the US in the future. If you condition people look abroad for resources, you condition people to remain dependent on the US and Europe for resources.
        It doesn't have to be so. Computer labs can be maintained using only the money generated by the lab if people have the proper skills. Computer labs can be expanded using the Internet to find cheap, older parts that can still handle all of your needs. I was able to build 486s out of existing 286s for less than $50 a computer using the Internet. If you can build something with just the resources local people have, they will see it as something they can do.
This will cascade into a variety of positive effects such as empowering the people, building their confidence and teamwork, and training them in leadership and organization skills. People might imitate your behavior, but nearly everyone takes a good deal of prodding before he will lead the way, which is the sort of ownership behavior that this discussion is all about.
Even if the community is so poor that $50 constitutes the whole yearly budget, you can still work within a framework that transfers ownership. Simply scale down the amount they must contribute to an amount they can afford. Instead of buying used parts and paying postage, I asked people who read Hardwarecentral.com if they would donate their old parts to schools willing to pay the postage. This "Revive the Dinosaur" project allowed a dozen computers to be upgraded to 486s for about $20 a computer. If you build something that required the money and efforts of the local people, they will see that something as their own. However, this approach is not as effective as having 100% of the money come from the community; people will come to believe that some of the money must come from Peace Corps for them to upgrade computers, and that will make them think they are dependent in the future.
        I think I should say a few words on SPA (Small Project something or other) funds. SPAs allow PCVs to have a little money to run a workshop or dig a latrine. In the way that they have been abused in the past, they fall clearly outside realm of the two approaches listed above. That is, they involve outsiders giving money, not local people using money. SPAs were designed to require a minimum 25% community contribution for a good reason: Projects to which the community must contribute are much more successful than projects that have no community requirements. Even at best, a 25% contribution means the project is four times more likely to fail than if the community has a 100% contribution. If you work with what people have, they will say "we did this ourselves" when the work is done. Take the community contribution aspect of a SPA fund seriously because it is your most powerful tool in transferring ownership of the project to leaders in the local community. However, it is always best to use methods which tap the community's resources and not your own.
Part 1: Introduction to the Job Part 2: Sustainability Part 3: Training Part 4: Practical Info and Appendix