As part of the preparations for the educational initiatives by the And Albert Foundation and partner organizations in Ghana this summer, a team of EVCO volunteers led by Seth Owusu piloted R.A.C.H.E.L. server deployments in March, in four locations, and here is a quick
summary of Seth's initial report..

On Sunday, March 14th at Singa in the Northern Region during a demonstration at Singa primary schools for students, teachers and local officials, Chief Zakaria Yakubu said that for a village school such as Singa to compete fairly, they need a RACHEL server. For students at this northern Ghana village who have never seen computers or the internet, all they could do was jump for joy!

At all the four locations where the RACHEL educational setup was demonstrated even to the most technologically savvy audience, the huge volume of content and the speed at which information is served just fascinated everyone.

Entire Village Computers Organization (EVCO) introduced a new addition to the current village school computer lab setup and donation program called Community Learning Centers (CLC).

EVCO's new CLCs give entire communities a common place for both students and adults to meet and educate themselves.

Already demonstrated to Chiefs and local officials at Anomabo (Fort Williams Slave Castle build in the year 1630) in the Central Region and Singa in the Northern Region, the new proposed CLCs will have 10 to 15 networked computers, based on the size of the building. Each CLC will have now a RACHEL server with 200 gigabytes of web based educational content but without the need for an internet connection and the demanding bandwidth which most villages lack.