Sabra-Shatila Foundation: XO Laptops to the children of Palestinian camps
By Haitham Sabbah • Sep 16th, 2008 at 18:56 • Category: Action Alert, Children's Corner, Haitham's Choice, Ideas and Projects, Internet and Communication, Newswire, PalestineDonations to Support Our XO Laptop Program are Greatly Appreciated
Note: The Sabra Shatila Foundation is funding the purchase and shipment of as many XO laptops as possible from the MIT One Laptop Per Child program. These unique self-powered, wind-up, internet-ready laptops cost approximately $180 per unit to manufacture, but they are offered in lots of 10,000 at a reduced rate of $100 per unit. We need public support to continue funding this project.
Transfer: Bank of Beirut, SAL, Eldorado Branch.
A/C # 1140 V 3819 0900
SWIFT: BABELBBE
Also, use our secure online PayPal link on the sidebar to make a contribution!
Sabra-Shatila Memorial Event and Laptop Distribution Programme
A Sabra-Shatila Massacre Memorial Event will begin at 10:30am on 16 September 2008. The event will commence outside the Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Beirut, Lebanon, at the Kuwaiti Embassy roundabout, and will proceed in a short Memorial Walk to Martyr’s Square off Rue Sabra, at the site of the 1982 massacre. Among those commemorating the 26th anniversary will be friends and relatives of the victims, foreign delegations, local student groups, NGO’s, dignitaries, and government officials. Scheduled speakers include Palestinian Ambassador Abass Zaki, Minister of Education Bahia Hariri, Members of Parliament and the Diplomatic Corps, the Mayor of Ghoberi Municipality, Mr Abu Said Al-Khansaa, Mr Aarwan Abdel Al of the PLO Central Committee, and victims of the 1982 Massacre. The ceremony will also include the launch of 1000 balloons in tribute to the 3000 people killed in 1982.
Just as the release of the balloon is at once a symbol of both honour and hope, this event will also mark a move forward for the new generation of Camp residents. The Sabra-Shatila Foundation (www.sabrashatila.org) announces the distribution of specially designed educational XO laptop computers as gifts to Palestinian students living in Shatila Camp. The Foundation will present laptops with award certificates to hundreds of students.
This distribution is part of a projected 100,000 laptops to be donated in the coming months to deprived Palestinian and Lebanese students in Lebanon. It is the hope and commitment of the Sabra-Shatila Foundation that all 59 Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and all of Palestine will, in the near future, benefit from the XO Laptop educational programme now being launched in Lebanon.
Full details of the history of the XO Laptop educational programme, as well as full specifications of the laptop unit can be found at www.laptop.org. The One Laptop Per Child programme is a non-profit organization providing children in need with a tool to discover their potential for learning and becoming part of the solution to the challenges faced by their community. These benefits are being implemented here in Lebanon by the Sabra-Shatila Foundation.
The XO Laptop
This special laptop has a critical mission: the education of disadvantaged children whose living environment would seriously challenge a traditional laptop. Full specifications and the history of its design can be found at www.laptop.org. Some key characteristics are:
* Spillproof, rain-proof, dust-proof and drop-proof
* Fanless, silent and light weight (less than 2 kilos)
* Built-in video camera, microphone, memory-card slot, graphics tablet and game-pad controllers
* Rugged screen that rotates into a tablet configuration
* Real-life tested in Africa, Asian and South America
* Run by a lithium ferro-phosphate battery, replaceable at only $10, and good for 2000 charges
* Low energy requirements, consuming a mere 2 watts compared with the conventional 60+ for ordinary laptops
* Non-dependant on electricity, using a pull-cord charger; one minute of pulling provides 10 minutes of power
* Colour screen with sharp definition (1200 x 9000 pixels), with option to turn off backlight so that the screen remains legible in bright sunlight
* Wireless internet connection and MESH networking capablility, allowing communication amongst laptops even with no internet, and the ability to share internet connection
* Includes a word processor, web browser, calculator, PDF textbook reader, educational games, music programs, and more
Source: Sabra Shatila Foundation, via: Servant.
Haitham Sabbah is an uprooted Palestinian blogger. He is the webmaster and editor of Palestine Blogs, also webmaster and co-editor of Palestine Think Tank. His personal blog is Sabbah's Blog: http://sabbah.biz/
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Thank you, Haitham.
We've got pictures from Tuesday's Remembrance at Martyr's Square and the big computer donation by Sabra Shatila Foundation. Come and see. The kids signed certificates of ownership on Tuesday, and Dr. Lamb has been working with OLPC and UNRWA schools to deliver the computers and training to students. He promised to take lots of pictures of the kids. I hope he remembers. I'm sure he's exhausted.
This is a huge effort that is going to create real new possibilities for the children of Palestine and Lebanon. With the advent of wireless Internet access in the schools (also being built out now) we may soon be able to chat directly with the students themselves. Who knows how many new your bloggers were just added to the blogosphere? Only time will tell.
I hope you will join our efforts at Sabra Shatila. Please donate as much as you can. There are no NGOs funding this effort at this point. Hopefully there may be soon. But we cannot rely upon that possibility.
This initial wave of computer donations are being funded entirely by Dr. Lamb personally, with the help of Dr. Ang Swee Chai and her friends at the hospital where she works.
Help spread the word to the blog-o-sphere. Write letters to the editor. Give us a shout in your blog, and leave comments where noble people read. Comment spam for a good cause is entirely justified, even if it's off topic. It is appreciated and welcome by most activists. Hopefully everyone will appreciate the information and the opportunity to do something which affects Palestinian children directly. Those links will also help our rank in the search engines.
I found almost everyone I know in the blogosphere through comments that linked to their blog.
Sign up for our newsletter via Feedburner too. Ann El Khoury of Peoples Geography and I will be posting more pictures of the kids as they arrive. We'll be introducing some of them to you via their own blog posts at Sabra Shatila Foundation. Don't miss anything. Sign up for the newsletter.
Thank you, Palestine Think Tank! And thank you, dear readers.
Come on over and guest blog too if you are moved. Or email content to servant dot savant at gmail dot com with attribution and I'll post it for you.
Best regards,
Servant