Full Life's Computer Lab Rebuilding Project

When I came to Full Life NGO we had one working XP Desk Top, three working Lenovo Laptops, and one Lenovo Desk Top that was Administratively Locked up and no one knew the password. The XP computer was being used to teach on Adult to use Excel by a Volunteer Teacher but otherwise the computers were not being used.  I worked at getting the Laptop computers working and logged into the Full Life WIFI.  I then began offering our After School Program Children the opportunity to get on our Laptop computers and an I Pad I had brought with me and soon found that it was such a popular part of the After School Program that we soon had half the class working on computers while the other half did Art Therapy.  I soon realized that with 15 After School Children in a class that I had to have more computers operational and find more software for them to use to keep the Children satisfied.  I had to reload the Millennium software on the Lenovo Computer to unlock it.  I found two potential repairable computers in a stack in the corner and discovered that one would work after reloading a unregistered copy of Millennium and another one needed a new hard drive.  That is when I started talking with my NGO about what it would take to make our Computer Lab Functional.   

I was aware that the Minnesota Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Association had fund raisers for Grants for Peace Corps NGO's that had a deadline soon for applying for.  Since the limit to our grant request was $1000 I looked into with my NGO what improvements we could make in our Computer Lab for $1,000.  My Director knew of two Lenovo Desk top Computers that could be donated to Full Life but they would need Keyboards, Mice and Monitors.  We only had one flat screen monitor and three old Tub monitors.  I set our goal at getting one new Desktop computer set that could do everything we wanted to do, get registered Windows and Office Software on all our computers, repair Laptop with a Fan Error and replace our bad Hard Drive.  I would have settled for a low cost computer set and less software to keep the cost below the $1,000 Grant that we were grateful that the Minnesota Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Association awarded us in May.  Then found that the Peace Corps preferred that we put that Grant through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, which would mean a lot more work to complete the application and to complete a required transfer of knowledge program for the computer lab.  In the process, we were encouraged by our SPA Grant Committee to consider upgrading our Computer equipment and software requests and fund-raise the difference.  We ended up submitting a PCPP Grant for a i3 rather than a Dual processor computer, and adding three flat screen monitors along with the Windows and MS Office Software.

Since this involved a lot more planning to decide what type of Knowledge transfer we could do within a short period so that we could move on to submitting a SPA Grant request for a program that would make use of the Computer Lab,  it was decided to develop some computer training for our After School program.  The challenge was to create some computer training in Armenian and how would we evaluate the results of our Computer Training.  We started with an initial survey of our After School Program kids to see what type of computer and internet access our children had at home and in school.  Then I developed a pre-test and afterwards a post-test to see what they learned from the lessons.  The Tuesday group got both the pre-test, the computer lesson, and Post-test.  The Thursday group because they missed a few classes at the end of the school year got the Computer Lesson and the post-test.  We also have developed a Computer interest Survey for the After School program, Potential Computer Clubs, and Vocational Training Program, which we have completed with the After School program and will become an ongoing Survey for the Computer Clubs and Vocational Programs.

Now we have Three Lenovo Desk Tops with Windows Millennium and MS Office, one with a tube monitor, the rest with Flat Screen monitors.  We have replace two Desk Top hard drives with 500 gig hard drives, they now have Windows 7 and Office 2007.  By the end of July we plan to put a free upgrade to Windows 10 on three of our Windows 7 laptop computers and our three desktop computers with Windows 7.  This will give us a total of six desktop  computers in our computer lab and four laptops. Everything will have registered Windows and MS Office Software on it.  This computer lab that is now completely connected to the internet and not only become very popular with the After School Program but we will be planning to start at least 2 Computer Clubs and use it for a Vocational Training Program. 

Our After School Program has been happy to be able to have six Desk Tops and three Laptops functioning and online.  We had one day when we had 18 After School Program kids here for a Orange Phone Company Grant Presentation that is supporting our After School Program and we were able to have 9 computers running and online.  The Children have been learning to find their favorite games and online web pages. We now have Typing  Instructor, Resume Maker  Software,  some Financial Software, and by fall with free educational Apps within Windows  10 I hope to have Computer lessons and educational software set up and organized to make the Computer Lab a more functional educational tool.  I already have Video and Photo Processing Software on our computers, we are collecting surveys of potential Computer Club members, and will be preparing the software to support Computer Training Classes or Special Interest Computer Groups.  After developing our SPA Grant we plan to be able to develop a Vocational Training Program using our Computer Lab and office.  Not only are the Children more excited with a After School program that is more than just Art Therapy.  But there are some older youth from the community who have become interested in the Full Life Computer Club Program and we have the potential of developing a Vocational Training Program using our Computer Lab to be able to improve the Employ-ability of our Adults with Disabilities.  This computer lab will not only be a important tool to teach individuals with disabilities to be able do develop computer and vocational skills.  It will also become a inclusive program that will not only work with Armenian, English, and Russian computer skills.  But it will include individuals with a variety of computer knowledge and interests together to help everyone improve their computer knowledge and abilities.  

We are grateful for the support of the Minnesota Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Association for their Grant to make this Computer Lab Rebuilding Project possible.  We look forward to this computer lab being able to improve our educational program of our After School Program, create Inclusive Computer Clubs to improve everyone's computer knowledge, and to have this Computer Lab become an important tool to create a Vocational Training Program within our Full Life NGO.