Computer Literacy For The Underprivileged

Computer Literacy for the Underprivileged A Sasmito Adibowo 1299000029

Background The social gap that exists in our community has an unfortunate side effect of producing more and more financially inadequate people. These people – lacking in opportunity and education – often find it difficult to improve their welfare. This situation is one of the factors that detains the growth of Indonesia’s economy. If this problem is not corrected, eventually it will lead to various social unrest. A move to educate the underprivileged was conducted in Brazil by Rodrigo Baggio, who established Computer and Citizenship Schools in Brazilian states. The program acquires a considerable success. Brazil being a non English speaking third world country with high crime rates has many factors comparable to Indonesia. Therefore, launching a similar program in Indonesia is considered feasible.

Mission To initiate and maintain a nonprofit program which increases the welfare of socially and financially inadequate people by providing basic computing knowledge with its practical applications.

Target Audience The program will be addressed on the general socially and financially inadequate members of the society who has the willingness to learn computers. A special focus will be placed on children and teenagers, primarily school dropouts who have to support themselves economically – either completely or partially.

Operation Plan The initial stage of the operation will be a feasibility study which will collect data from across Jabotabek in order to answer the following questions: C What are the interests of the people (in this case, the target audience)? C How can computers improve their lives? C How willing are the people to learn computers? C In what region(s) the program will be launched which yield acceptance and will acquire maximum success? The next stage of the operation will be to acquire support from the locals to create and maintain computer learning centers with minimal or no

tuition fee. The physical location of the centers will be located in public buildings such as:

C Community Centers C Pesantrens C Primary/secondary schools C Correction Facilities The PCs required will be obtained by requesting support from large companies to donate their old – which would otherwise be discarded – systems. Non-PC equipments acquired – such as networking equipments – will be used to build more advanced facilities. The IT human resources such as tutors and administrators will be obtained from socially-oriented non-governmental organizations and university students. Further tutors will be obtained by employing the graduates from the tuition centers itself. Support for further funding and operations are planned to be requested from social youth-oriented local and international organizations such as the UNICEF. Support for further hardware may be obtained by donations of used PCs from nearby first and second-world countries such as Australia and Singapore.

Daily Activities C

C C C C

Run a computer typing service which employs junior and senior high school dropouts. The candidate employee will be given preliminary tuition. Introduce PCs as a learning aid in primary schools. Educate small business owners in using PCs to assist in simple accounting. Educate service business owners to use PCs as a management and scheduling tool. Introduce the use of PCs to street kids – for which the materials will be kept simple and interesting, e.g. write, draw, and paint.

Funds Allocation The Rp 100 million grant initially will be only partially used and allocated roughly as follows: C Rp 5 million feasibility study. C Rp 10 million infrastucture (building preparation and maintenance). C Rp 20 million human resources (food and beverage for volunteers, payment for cleaning staff and employees). C Rp 10 million transportation and administration (for acquiring and transporting PCs).