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Seeds Testimonial-Argentina, 2012

Downlaod Report

SURINAME Report

In February 2012 two Seeds of Empowerment volunteers travelled to Suriname to conduct workshops and conferences. The objective was to develop a long-term plan with the Ministry of Education in Suriname to create pedagogical dynamics for education reform there.

Downlaod Report

February 23, 2011
Seeds promotes collaboration with IRSA Foundation in Argentina

From January 3rd to February 23, 2011, Luciana Lujan, education officer at Fundación IRSA, used TeacherMates with children from five rural schools at a summer camp in rural Salta. Congratulations for your great effort and work, Luciana. Keep empowering!

From November 9 to 10, 2010, Luciana Lujan conducted the second introductory workshop to pilot test TeacherMate at another rural multigrade school in the Chaco Salteño, called Sta. Teresa, using the same 12 donated devices. The workshop was given to kids from ages 5 to 16 years in one classroom, as is common in many multigrade rural schools in the developing world. As in the previous workshop, we confirmed that all of the children played with the interactive educational games and enjoyed the mobile device greatly. There was also much interest and collaboration from the teacher. Luciana will be rotating and doing replicas of the first introductry workshop in five more multigrade public schools in rural areas of the Chaco Salteño, a very poor area of Northern Argentina.

Read the report in Spanish

November 18–21, 2010
Seeds' latest activities in Uruguay

Sponsored by ORT University and Plan CEIBAL, Claudia Muñoz-Reyes, regional director for Latin America, presented to Miguel Brechner (President) and Mónica Baez (Education Director) at Plan Ceibal, our global program, and discussed the possibility of implementing TeacherMates for initial education at public schools in Uruguay. Thanks to the great effort of Julio Fernandez, academic vice dean, and Ana Olmedo, ICT for education professor at ORT University, Claudia gave several presentations of our global program, including one at ORT University facilities from November 18 to 20, 2010. Claudia also met with Guillermo Fernandez from G&VW, partners with Innovations from Learning, to see new digital content in Spanish they have developed especially for TeacherMate. At the end of this productive trip, Claudia met with Carolina Cosse, president of ANTEL, Uruguay's national telecom company, which showed great interest in sponsoring the first pilot using TeacherMate for vulnerable children at INAU's community centers all over the country. ORT University is highly interested in signing an MoU with Stanford University to become our academic partner in Uruguay to implement this global program and others in the future. We also hope to work together with Guillermo Fernandez at G&VW and keep empowering their digital content and innovation in Spanish!

Read the report in Spanish

Sept 27–Oct 4, 2010
Seeds' latest activities in Argentina

Thanks to the great effort made by Patricio Sutton, executive director at Red Comunidades Rurales, and the support of TELECOM Argentina, Fundacion IRSA, Fundación Avina, IIEP–UNESCO and Colegio de Arquitectos de Salta, Claudia Muñoz-Reyes, regional director for Latin America, had a very productive trip to Argentina from September 27 to October 2, 2010. She conducted an introductory workshop to pilot test TeacherMate educational games with children that had no exposure to the digital world at the rural multigrade school La Argentina in the remote region of El Chaco, near Salta, in northern Argentina, where 12 devices were donated. In about two hours, all these children could play with at least three applications and enjoyed listening and recording their own voices for the first time, using the storyteller. Claudia also made several presentations at universities in Buenos Aires and in Salta about our global program and gave speeches about the importance of using mobile technologies to enhance critical thinking, creativity, scientific attitude, literacy, and numeracy among underserved children in the developing world.

November 16, 2010
Seeds is empowering blind and visually impaired children

Seeds of Empowerment conducted a series of studies to measure blind children's spatial intelligence and executive functioning with audible games. Thirty blind children in Malaysia played with our Tower of London and Cardinal Direction audible games and enjoyed them.

September 23, 2010

Afghan refugees are creating their life stories with Storymaker

A new Android application developed by Seeds of Empowerment has given Afghan refugee children a chance to create their own stories and distribute them worldwide. Storymaker digital narrative application is available on Android phones and has been pilot tested in Malaysia and received major enthusiasm from young participants.

Aug 2010
Seeds of Empowerment | XRI Global nominated as Top 30 finalists for WISE Awards 2010

WISE Awards 2010–Top 30!
The 1001 Stories project uses mobile technology to create an “economy of creativity” that motivates children to learn, read, write, and create innovative content in the form of stories based on their personal experiences and folklore. Find out more

July 29 and 30, 2010
The first storytelling workshop and competition was conducted in Malaysia.

Young participants were excited and shared their life stories with Seeds of Empowerment team. Seventy-three children from Rumah Batik Orphanage house participated in the two-day storytelling workshop conducted in July.

The Seeds of Empowerment team was selected as a finalist for the Cooney Center Prizes for Innovation, Breakthroughs in Mobile Learning!

Neha Taleja, Bethany Willbanks, and Melanee Grondahl represented the team at the finals in Los Angeles.

The Team was awarded with a Certificate of Excellence in Innovation

Read more ...

Bethany Willbanks piloted violence prevention in an “Our Story” storytelling workshop at Kannama Care Centre (KCC) at the Durban YMCA in Cape Town, and with Knowledge Beat in Lusaka, Zambia.