Haiti Outreach first built the Lycee, the public secondary school in Pignon, in 2003 – 2004. The demand for additional classrooms was so great by the community that they raised funds and built a few additional classrooms themselves the following year. Then in 2007, they approached us because student demand was still growing dramatically and they needed at least five more classrooms. They also asked for rooms that could hold a library and computer lab.
We raised funds and built this seven room school addition, which was completed in 2009. The Engineers without Borders students at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (www.iit.edu/~haiti), who have been working with us designing water systems for the towns of Pignon and La Victoire, decided to take on the design and building of the electrification of the Lycee using solar power. This will enable the school to have the electricity they need for the computer lab and electrical lights. This system was installed in August of 2009.
Now, we need to either raise the funds for 10 computers or get good quality used Apple laptop computers donated to us. They cost about $900 apiece new. We need them to be laptops because they take less electricity than desktop computers. They need to be Apple computers so that they don’t have the virus and adware problems that constantly afflict PC’s.
Also, we just built our newest public secondary school in the town of La Victoire. We intend to have a computer lab in that school, just like the Pignon school. So we will need computers for that school as well.
If you would like to donate a new or good quality Apple laptop computer, or know where we can obtain some, or if you would like to donate money for one or more computers, please call us at 612-929-1122 or email us at [email protected] . Not only will this computer lab create the possibility for students to learn computer skills, it will also open up the vast range of knowledge available from the Internet. To raise money to pay for the Internet access and upkeep, this computer lab will be turned into a community cyber café.
Help us provide the infinite possibilities that the computer world has to offer for the students and community of Pignon! As we work with communities to build other schools, we hope to provide them with electricity and a computer lab as well.
