The Mission: The Mission of MTSA is to make available literacy and an elementary education for every little girl and little boy in Afghanistan who does not have a regular school or teacher.
They include particularly children in rural areas where distance and dangerous conditions still obtain. They are approximately half of all children in Afghanistan at present. Nor are they scheduled, according to the Ministry of Education, to get schools or teachers in the near future, before they grow up to be illiterate adults.
The Vision: The Vision of MTSA is that by using modern technologies of distance learning, each of these approximately four million rural children can learn to read and write and acquire knowledge of the world outside their tiny village. In particular, MTSA has adopted the program of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) as the most effective and economical way to deliver literacy and education to these children.
During the past year, 2008, some important strides were taken toward our goal:
Senior US Congress members provided letters of support for the basic concept of the Mission of MTSA, defined as development of a distance learning program for Afghanistan’s rural and other children who do not have schools or teachers.
MTSA adopted the OLPC technology platform as the best means of accomplishing the Mission. The motto of OLPC is very important: “It’s not a laptop, it’s an education.”
Independently, in September 2008 OLPC Afghanistan was created and funded to place the XO, the OLPC laptop, in schools in Afghanistan. The first school is planned to be in Jalalabad.
Many of the preliminary tasks we had projected have been undertaken by OLPC Afghanistan, including translation of the software for the OLPC into Dari and Pashto.
In the coming year:
MTSA is now watching, waiting and hoping for the success of OLPC Afghanistan. We have offered our hand of friendship and assistance and are exploring in what ways we might be helpful.
MTSA will be encouraging OLPC Afghanistan and the Ministry of Education to prepare to expand the deployment of the XO laptops to rural areas where children are without schools or teachers, and exploring also a plan to include homeless street children in Kabul, and children in orphanages and hospitals.
And MTSA is actively trying to find a video game developer to work with us to create the Mulla Nasrudin Literacy Adventure Video Game, the original centerpiece of our literacy curriculum.
Message from the Chair:
When I was last in Afghanistan many Afghans said to me: “Please don’t forget Afghanistan . . . again.” We must not forget the current generation of rural children. The XO laptop education, distributed One Laptop Per Child, is the only chance they have of access to literacy and education. We cannot afford to forget them, to leave boys to become cannon fodder, girls to be married off and mothers before they are fully grown. We have the opportunity. The technology is there. We only need the will, and the funding. Yes we can.
Carol Ruth Silver,
Chair, MTSA