Canada Foundation for Nepal
Through the Light of Knowledge!
Through the Light of Knowledge!
February 2008
March 02, 2008: The greatest improvement we have made thus far is that we are able to send emails from the schools in Nepal without an assistance.
You should be feeling great for the fact that you are able to send your message to more than thirty people scattered in Nepal, Canada and USA is one stroke. Is not that powerful? This is an example of being productive. We get a lot more done with the same amount of effort when we apply right kind of technology and approach to multiply the effect of our work. I am hopeful that over time you will be able to apply this multiplying effect on many many things you have to do there in a regular basis. You will be able to improve the quality of living although it may seem not so possible today.
Please note that no one in the world can help improve our lives until the day we wake from within. As we are trying to inspire you, you must also inspire us by showing leadership and sacrifice. Then we build great teams to bring changes of profound nature.
There cannot be better time than this to transform the fortune of that place than now. This is one of the best time in the history of humankind to bring positive and sustainable changes. – Pramod Dhakal, Canada
Mar 02, 2008: We received your emails and are very happy. We are unable to send the data collection of the school of this areas because of the shortage of time. Geeta and Smita have left Sarkuwa. We are trying our best to get the data of the schools in this areas as soon as possible. Thank you very much for giving concern about our schools. We hope you will continue working for the betterment of our school. – Sarkuwa School Family
Feb 29, 2008: Thanks to all who are directly and indirectly supporting and helping us . We are really very very happy. We have received all the mails through I-box. Now our I-Box is working in off-line mode. Yesterday, I went to Janata school and fixed the problem of two computer and now are working properly. UPS of janata school is not working; may be the battery is damaged. – Hari K Paudel Feb 28, 2008: I have been reading, with great interest, the progress you are all making with the instruction you are receiving on the computers. I am so pleased and excited for all of you and grateful for the time and efforts of so many people willing to bring technology to Sarkuwa. In spite of the problems you are facing, your enthusiasm and desire to learn will lead you to success! Congratulations to you all. I am so proud of you! – Donna Lea, USA
Feb 28, 2008: I am encountering a number of problems. My past training is not strong. Therefore, if there were Nepali speaking teachers like Miss (Geeta and Smita), there would be progress. My problems: Electricity, phone connection, low typing speed, not enough time for practice, course too basic, hard ware problems. – Pramo Thapa, Computer Teacher, Nepal
Feb 27, 2008: This is Hira Mani Sharma from Sarkuwa. I am pleased to get lucky chance to contact all of you. Nowadays I am learning writing E-mail with the help of Miss Geeta.
Your courage to take this venture on communicating with the world is commendable and I am so proud of you. Once you open up the communication focused on worthy objectives, you will be able to draw on the goodwill of the people around the world to transform the lives of the people of Sarkuwa and the region. I look forward to having this stream of communication to continue. – Pramod Dhakal, Canada
I'll try more again and looking forward hearing from you very soon. – Hira Mani Sharma, Sarkuwa, Nepal Feb 27, 2008: I would like to connect with you tomorrow morning between 6-8 am(your time). I would like to talk about our project so that you can send some data with Geeta before she depart from Nepal for Canada. Please, convey my greeting to all teacher staffs at Sarkuwa. – Prem Sharma, Saskatoon, Canada
Feb 27, 2008: During the day, the internet connection is incredibly slow, often unusably so. It tends to get faster in the evening, after 7 or 8 pm. Using the internet during the day is very hard. The Wizzy IBox is setup to automatically connect at night when no one is there, and do the internet transfer then. This means you can send emails during the day, without connecting to the internet, and at night the server will connect and send the emails for you. The IBox and the phone must be left on (and connected) all night for this to work. This also means that there is sometimes a delay in the email being sent, since it will wait until the server goes online to send it. I found that in Janata the electricity would go out for hours sometimes, and that would run the battery down on the computer, turning it off at night, so sometimes it wouldn't connect to the internet for a couple of days.
You can manually connect to the internet, and on the dial up page, it will show you how many emails are waiting to be sent. When you connect this number will go down as the emails get sent.
I'm very happy to hear that you are there helping them learn the computers. – Kelsey Wood, South Africa
Feb 27, 2008: I sent email yesterday too but I found out it did not get sent anywhere even though it said so in this computer. Please reply back if anyone got this message. - Geeta Thapa, Sarkuwa, Nepal
Feb 26, 2008: I am Smita now working as a volunteer in Janata Secondary School with Geeta. We are very happy to work here and proud in having two way communication with you all through e-mails. We got all e-mails you have sent. It is so hard for here to get connected with internet because of instability of power and the connection of phone is not so strong.
We really are having great time here. All staffs are friendly to work with. They gave us more inspiration on our job that we are here for. We even took several classes. Students are here good too and we found here girls are more active than guys and the number of girls are far more than of guys in higher grades.
Thank you Pramod for everything. I am personally feeling so proud to be here and be the part of this project. We will be wokring here as hard as we can and do our best to get all the information. - Smita Khatiwada, Sarkuwa, NepalFebruary 26, 2008: There is success in sending emails in both directions. Kudos to Geeta, Smita, and Kelsey. This is a great sign of how our hopes are going to be stronger every day. It also demonstrates how having base communication technology and IP connectivity is insufficient. It is increasingly apparent that I-Box like technology will play an instrumental role in our endeavors. Kelsey, your work will be doing some wonder for Sarkuwa and the region. For this Megh, Geeta and Smita will have to divide the work ... It is better to do endeavors and fail than not doing them in fear of making mistakes. ... Geeta: Training and communication; Megh: Statistics of schools in south belt of Baglung; Smita: Knowledge of the workings of Women’s Group ...
I am extremely excited with how things are developing. Thanks to Donna, Tom, David, Zach, Larry, Kelsey and many more who contributed to open up the door of possibilities.
My sincere greetings to all people of Sarkuwa. Many thanks to Geeta, Smita, and Megh. - Pramod Dhakal, Canada
Feb 26, 2008: Prem jee, Namaskar. Congratulation for sending email from Sarkuwa. It is perfectly working. We are happy and thanks for all contributors who support alot to link Sarkuwa with WORLD. Once again convey my Namaskar to all my respected Gurus and friends. With best regards, ‘ Mahashram Sharma, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Education, Nepal
Feb 26, 2008: We have only recently discovered an issue with email going into our IBoxes in Nepal. This problem should be resolved shortly. The problem has caused the delay of some mail destined for the schools in Nepal. The mails are not lost, but some are sitting on our servers waiting to be delivered. Andy is actively working on this, and it will be remedied shortly. Hari should receive emails waiting on our server shortly. We had never dealt with the firewalls in Nepal telecom’s system before. - Kelsey Wood, South Africa
Feb 26, 2008: Why the mails related to sarkuwa are not updated in the Wizzy I-box at Shanti? Either it is not added in the member of sarkuwa@cffn.ca or what? - Hari K Paudel, Kusmi-Sera, Baglung, Nepal
Feb 25, 2008: This is a test email sent by Prem Thapa of Janata Higher Secondary School, Sarkuwa. I am sending first time so let me know if it worked properly. – Prem Thapa, Computer Teacher, Nepal
Feb 25, 2008(Sent Feb 24, 2008): This is Geeta Thapa, CFFN volunteer from Canada. Right now I am at Janata Higher Secondary School, Sarkuwa. I am trying to get the Internet connection working from the computers here but the dial up connection does not seem to work properly or seem very slow during school hours, thus nobody is able to use the Internet. only this computer with Wizzy Digital software is working at the moment. I will update on any progress we will make on this issue. - Geeta Thapa, Sarkuwa, Baglung, Nepal Feb 24, 2008 Executive Board member of Canada Forum for Nepal, Geeta Thapa from Ottawa, Canada, along with a young volunteer Smita Khatiwada of Kathmandu finally reached Sarkuwa yesterday (some 10 days after the planned date due to strikes and resulting fuel shortage in Nepal). They are attempting to provide training on Wizzy Digital I-Box and are attempting to send emails towards us. On a phone conversation to Sarkuwa today, they told me that they sent an email through the server in the school during the day. However, I am unable to find the emails in my mailbox.
I am, therefore, requesting Kelsey to check the I-Box email switchboard to find if it has arrived there. That the duration for which Geeta can stay in Sarkuwa is limited, your help is diagnosing this problem will be greatly appreciated. - Pramod Dhakal, Ottawa
Feb 12, 2008:
This is a training material on how to use mouse.
This is a training material on how to use email.
- Larry Wood, USA
Feb 12, 2008
Kelsey, Wow! I am ever impressed! This kind of remote monitoring ability will take us a long ways in a near future. Things appear tough at the moment only because of the lack of enough exposure and training. However, I am confident that we will get over the hump soon enough. I would like to know from Kelsey if there is a trainer's package or something like that.
All in all I am very optimistic about the success of our endeavors. - Pramod Dhakal, Canada
Feb 11, 2008 I agree about the computer training program for the teachers. I think this will be a vital resource for interested teachers, and I am willing to help with such a program. I think it would be greatly beneficial.
In one email a problem with the email at Ramkot was mentioned. ... I would like to know what information we have about the problem, it may be possible for me to help fix the problem from here. Our server records show that Ramkot connected to the internet yesterday (feb 10th) and that janata and gccsera have connected today (feb 11th). These are good signs to me. It may be possible to fix any problem at Ramkot without a trip out there. We will need more information about the specific problem first.
Thanks to everyone on this group and involved, the support I received in Nepal was really great, and was fundamental in the successful completion of the installation. - Kelsey Wood, South Africa
Feb 11, 2008 Dear Narayan, I am thankful for you informed us about the problems. You keep on telling us the problems and we will come to your rescue one way or another, and sooner or later.
From your email today, we came to learn that we have three problems at hand:
Feb 10, 2008 My son recently returned from Sarkuwa, Nepal where he was teaching English for 3 months. Some of the alumni from the school are working very hard to bring a better education to the area and are trying to introduce computers to help. The alumni reside in Canada and recruited my son to teach English in Sarkuwa through local teachers in Champaign who had established a pairing between a local school here and Sarkuwa. The power supply in the region is very poor, particularly during the school day. I believe it is a water driven system donated through the UN. I wondered if Engineers Without Borders would have any suggestions about or interest in how to improve the power supply? The region is mountainous. The principle crop is dal and rice. There are very few roads but the school is about 600 and the area in which the school resides supports about 10,000 people. - Prof. Roy Campbell, USA
Feb 10, 2008 I agree with you that we need to offer training courses to school teachers on the use of computers and e-mail. What would interest the teachers to attend such courses? Please feel free to make suggestions.
We have installed the Wizzy I-Box at Ramkot Higher Secondary School of Kaski. If you recall, Kelsey Wood also spent some time there last month. I have heard that there is some problem in e-mail system, someting is not working properly. Is there any way that you or someone from your school go to Ramkot High School and check if you can solve the problem?
Murari Suvedi, Michigan, USA
Feb 10, 2008: The computers in GCC and Shanti Hr Sec are working properly but the load shading of electricity is increased up to 8 hours a day. Because of this electricity problem, we could not use the internet in reliable time. Shanti HS School is managing a room for the computer. But no one is there to use the computer because operating system is quite different than Windows XP (i.e. our I-box supports Linux operating system). I am busy to use the computer at school time; even if I get a little bit time, at that very movement there may not electricity this problem will remain still for two more months.
First of all I think all of the teachers in school must need computer knowledge and training then only the students may get computer education from school. But I do not know how the teachers get computer knowledge because some teachers have no interest in computer and some others those who are intrested to learn computer could not able to manage the time to learn computer knowledge.
Narayan Acharya, Kusmi-Sera, Nepal
Feb 7, 2008: I think there are two challenges: one is the electricity, of course, and the other is simply getting familiar with the computers. It takes time for newcomers to feel the freedom to explore the new equipment.
And, of course, I would like to make sure the equipment is still working properly. If there are technical problems with any of it, please let me know. But, I think that as long as the equipment is functional, it will eventually be integrated into the life there. If there is anything we can help with, I'd be glad to give it a try. - Larry Wood, USA
Feb 10, 2008 Deepak ji, your great generosity is greatly appreciated. We will work together in the future to advance our endeavours. - Pramod Dhakal, CanadaI called Mr. Shukra Sir at Ramkot but he said that the school are closed nowadays so I canceled my trip for the time being. I will arrange later when I have free time. - Deepak Upreti, Nepal
Deepak ji, if you (and if possible one more computer science friend of yours) can go to Ramkot, Kaski District and help the school send receive emails through the computer lab, that will be a tremendous help to us and, most of all, to Nepal. Please give a serious consideration to this volunteer work. It is one of the most beautiful places in Nepal and you will remember this trip throughout your life.
We are all driven by a goal that transcends much beyond one school or one lab. However, we have to successfully take many small steps till we understand the ground realities of the places we operate on. Your efforts will help us take us a long way. - Pramod Dhakal, Canada
Feb 6, 2008: We have started a small Computer Lab at Ramkot Higher Secondary School in Kaski. There is no one to teach computer classes to students. The school will greatly appreciate any help and assistance to this school. Please share this information with your classmates at KU and let me know if someone is interested to volunteer. - Murari Suvedi, USA I want Tom to focus on educational use of the computers. What I am trying to solve in the interim is to develop local ability to send emails in a regular basis. Even that much seems rather difficult at the moment. - Pramod Dhakal, Canada
I am up for the day and saw this letter from Deepak. As you know Tom is interested in making the trip again and he is quite knowledgeable about computers. He is also concerned about the English education of the students and thinks he can help. I have not been too keen on him being there by himself, especially not knowing the language. I wonder if there would be any possibility of Deepak being there during the time Tom is thinking of. They might support each other. What do you think? ...I am healing. ...- Donna Lea, USA
Feb 5, 2008: Dear Deepak ji: I am so proud and honoured by your desire to serve those in Nepal who bear no hope today. ... our volunteers established small computer labs ... but the villages have no one with computer literacy ... not many messages are coming from Nepal. If you could go for a few months and make a lot of email communication happen and train at least one person who is inspired, dedicated, provides some good leadership that would be so much appreciated.
Self inspired youth like you are the people who will one day build a great Nepal. People like me are those who will love to see you succeed in that worthy journey.
Pramod Dhakal, Canada
Feb 5, 2008:
Respected sir, this is Deepak Upreti from Nepal. I am highly interested to serve as a volunteer in your school project. I am young Nepalese student and I strongly believe that I can contribute to make your program successful from my side. ...
Deepak Upreti, Kayhmandu University
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