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Pejman Samoori announces Minga Digital at the COTAS exhibit
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Photo: Allan Baer |
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Santa Cruz, Bolivia Sept. 29, 2000 SolarQuest® iNet News Service
Allan Baer and Ron Swenson were invited by William Torrico to attend the official launch of Minga Digital, a joint program between the Rotary Club, COTAS (the Santa Cruz-based telephone company) and Universidad Nur, held at EXPOCRUZ 2000. Opening remarks were made by William Torrico, thanking the sponsors and volunteers in Rotary who had made the initiative possible. Then he introduced Pejman Samoori, coordinator of Human Resources for Universidad Nur, the educational partner in Minga Digital. Pejman Samoori gave an overview of the Minga Digital Project. Three of the many important points he made were: - Extension of the school environment into the home and the community. Using health as an example, Pejman emphasised the importance of teachers monitoring health care in their students´families. As the education partner in the program, Universidad Nur is developing a student driven family health assessment curriculum and are looking at the possibilities of using technology to develop family health indicators.
- Build internationial unity by creating a channel of communication between Bolivian schools and schools in other countries, with the goal of integrating youth experience with other people in order to learn about complex problems that they will face in the future.
- Pejman emphasized the potential of technology to stabilize the country and the ability of technology to support unity of races and unity of a vision for the people of Bolivia.
The objective of Minga Digital is: "Contribuimos al fortalecimiento de la educación en nuestra comunicad mediante la integración de Internet en el proceso de enseñanza - aprendizaje." -- that is, "We are strengthening education in our community through the integration of Internet in the learning process."
| Photo: Ron Swenson | Allan demonstrated the SolarQuest® virtual schoolhouse to María Nelly Pavisich. She is coordinator of projects and development programs for Transredes, SA, a petroleum transport company, president-elect of her Rotary Club and graduated from Syracuse University in Information Management Systems. They discussed the use of distance education technology to achieve the Minga Digital program goals. María Nelly arranged a meeting with Rotary Club members to make a presentation about technical assistance project anmd identify international resources for ICT development.
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