I welcome you to this premier edition of our newsletter that highlights what we are up to, our various activities and some challenges that we are facing.

We are living in an interesting time; a time in which the whole world is pausing due to a disease that is threatening everyone’s existence.

Schools were forced to close, religious activities are on hold, airplanes were grounded, and several industries need to re-think, re-evaluate, re-strategize what survival implies for their businesses during and after a “global lockdown”. 
Environmentalist are celebrating: "it is time for mother earth to heal!" Whether the global warming effect is caused by carbon dioxide or not, the results are obviously positive for nature.

Think back: We walked into this new era without prior knowledge of what 2020 would bring.

I don't know anyone who has experienced a global pandemic before, no one can give a hint of what living means in such times. In fact, Nigeria was not even an independent republic when the last global pandemic happened over 100 years ago.
This period has changed everything for me: I read a lot and I realized that pandemics and natural disaster are parts of life which the world needs to make provision for.

For me, it is family time - a time to reflect, plan and pause from the fast pace movement of existence. During this period, I got the time to teach my child Mathematics and I programmed a Mathematical game for him to be able to learn better. It made me feel like a superhero. Wait! Does this mean my change project AYITI will have to wait? Does this mean the children to whom I have interviewed see their excitement of becoming a programmer in 52 weeks go up in smoke? Does this mean I have to keep the donors’ funds in the bank and keep writing reports of no activities? No, this is a period to reflect more about AYITI, what life is all about and it is indeed a time to find new ways to make an impact in the lives of these vulnerable and marginalized children even if the world will have to stop breathing.

It is time to become frugal. There is a need to spark the light in these children and into our dreams of social change again by implementing simple solutions. I have been thinking of different options to reach my beneficiaries. These are children from a background of extreme poverty, some of whom do not have parents. What does ‘learning’ mean to them? What will learning computer programming be like without the option of a computer to practice because their parent cannot afford one? What about the lack of internet or even someone to answer the questions that come up?

Evaluating our different options, we considered the possibility of using smart phones (Android) since they are low cost, portable and accessible. Many of these parents cannot afford food so it is almost certain they do not have a smart phone. Our plan is to get second-hand phones, install an offline app that runs code, and periodically deliver short teaching videos through Bluetooth. With this they will be able to explore the world of programming. Once a week, we will call them to understand their progress, discuss any questions they have, and receive feedback which will be used to improve the quality of our video classes. We cannot quantify how far this will go but with feedback and reiteration, we might be able to set up a new way of learning.
Life will not remain the same. According to Newton’s Law of motion, “Every object in a state of uniform motion will remain in that state of motion unless an external force acts on it.” Here is the big force that is putting human activities to a big pause so we can reflect. We should learn to not just exist… It is time to live. If there is any better time to redefine what humanity and existence mean, it is NOW!

What is new?

WEBSITE

We are thrilled to announce the launch of our new domain name https://www.ayiti.ngo. One of the features is its brevity, very quick to remember. Additionally, the new name depicts who we are; an NGO (compared to when we were on the commercial top-level domain extension). 

We have also improved the structure of our content and the plan is to keep updating with all our new activities. Be assured that you will get more from a quick read. 

There’s whole host of smaller but impactful changes, all to make the experience of the adjusted site much better for people and informative. If you’d like to know more about what we do and our new look, please visit us https://www.ayiti.ngo today.
 

ALUMNI GROUP
We have also created an alumni group to bring back past alumnus of AYITI program into the fold.  Hopefully, together we can both learn from our personal and professional experiences. We look forward to supporting the children through their life’s journey. Because we know good ideas grow when shared, they now now share ideas with their peer and us to find a listening ear.
 

VIDEOS
Shooting of CODE GENERALS – a video series for learning computer programming for ethical change. We have already shot 2 episodes out of 15 episodes and will commence delivery of the courses to our beneficiaries by next week. 
 

PARTNERSHIP
What’s also new is the fact that we are now in partnership with another NGO in Ondo state (DURIAN - http://www.durian.org.ng). They will be using our content to teach programming languages to children from rural communities. This will test the efficacy of our virtual classes on children who probably have not heard about programming before. 

We hope you like the changes, and if you have any feedback, please let us know by sendind us an email at oakinyele@ayiti.ngo

OUR CHALLENGES
As we are dimensioning into virtual classes for our beneficiaries so as to keep our beneficiaries engaged in this era of lockdown. We want to purchase 20 cheap mobile phones with at least 16GB SD Card for 20 children.

We found a Tecno phone that can serve this purpose on Konga.

We will appreciate donations in any form (Airtime or Phones) to help us make this change happen in our society and Africa at large. Life will never remain the same, even for this children. Let us spark a wave of new hope in them.

We decided not to touch our current position at bank since our program will continue as proposed after the lockdown.

Please help us to make this change happen in our society and Africa at large. Life will never remain the same, even for these children. Let us spark a wave of new hope in them. THANK YOU for your help!

Please stay safe and healthy, protect yourself and protect others!

Yours
Olubodun Akinyele