Hello friends.
Last December, I hinted about a starting PhRUG-led public-service
project. It was my lucky day because several people volunteered right
away to build the website. Today, we want to share what we are
building. This is something very close to our hearts and we are very
excited about it. We hope our excitement spreads to you and your
friends.
Our project focuses on 2 problems:
1. Have a way for bright students to seek financial help.
2. Have a way for people, wherever they are, to help these students.
Now you're thinking there are hundreds of scholarships out there for
college students and thousands of fast food joints offering jobs. But
our target are not just college students. Our aim is to help
elementary and high school students in public schools. The young
Juan's who sell vegetables in the market, or the young Maria's who
sell buko pie at the bus station. For the lucky ones, after school
they have no choice but to skip play time and help their parents. For
the unlucky ones, they drop out of school at age 12. According to
statistics, the population in public elementary schools is around 12
million students, and in high school around 5 million. In an ideal
world, there should be around 8 million students in high school.
Our project is a combination of high technology and manual labor. Lots
and lots of manual labor :)
The high-tech part is a webapp where student information and financial
details can be posted. Generous folks like you can pick a student to
support by giving financial assistance. So how can the family of a
grade 5 student with very little money even for food would have
access to a computer and the Internet? They don't need to; and this is
where the lots and lots of manual labor come in.
We need volunteers to organize what I call a micro-scholarship
foundation of their own. A volunteer picks the school, chooses the
students, withdraws from the bank, and handles all the necessary
interfaces to our webapp. My college buddies with the help of a
teacher have already organized one and they have sponsored 5 students
from an elementary school in Quezon City. Every month, money arrives
from the US, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, and New Zealand. Another
teacher from Montalban, Rizal are asking us to organize one in her
school. Yes, we can duplicate it in other schools. Unfortunately, we
can't clone our bodies and our money. (I wish it was that easy :))
The project's name is SchoolArk where ARK == Act of Random Kindness.
The first one to guess it right where I got the idea will receive a
kiss from Paris Hilton.
While the initial students are Filipinos, we want this webapp to be
used in other countries as well. Other countries have the same
problems in education as the Philippines. SchoolArk can become the
Kiva.org for students - "Designed in Manila. Used around the world"
:)
Of course, the high-tech part is where PhRUG comes in (though I am not
discouraging you to become a volunteer for your school, too).
Currently, we have Cris and Eumir working on this during their free
time. Please treat them to Starbucks - they need all the caffeine :)
We still need a developer, a designer, and someone who loves to
write. For now, only the developers can access the code but it will be
open eventually.
If you can't help with the coding, you can help with the following:
* When the preview is ready, help us find and fix bugs. The core
developers are really good but we are only humans. As Linus once said,
"given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow."
* Spread the word. Tell your friends and relatives. Do you know that
250 pesos a month is enough to support 1 student? That is just 2
BigMac meals.
* Share it with other communities. We have ideas for creating a
Wordpress plugin or a website widget. We sure need some help from our
PHP friends :)
* Be a volunteer. If you came from a private school, find a public
school in your town. Talk to the principal and find a volunteer
teacher to help you out.
* Share with the expenses. If you can shoulder the hosting expenses,
thank you! If you want to buy as coffee, thank you! If you've just
won the lottery, fund us so we can hire developers. Who wouldn't want
to work on Ruby/Rails full time? :)
That's it for now and I hope you're infected with our excitement.
Before I eat some bagels (it's 1:30 AM here in Vancouver), I leave you
with a few words from Rabbi Harold Kushner:
"Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those
rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are
hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live
so that our lives matter so the world will at least be a little bit
different for our having passed through it"
Regards,
Greg
ramon, david - I'll invite you to our unfuddle account
richard - you owe me one!
neil - thanks man!
angol - most of the time for food and occasional school supplies
- greg
- Greg
On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 6:04 PM, Johann Vincent Paul Tagle
<johan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Greg,
--
Starting From Scratch
http://gregmoreno.ca