Africa PRO9

Africa PRO9
Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea

Don Dirks is a Canadian citizen by birth [1933] but has lived abroad for
over 39 years. Fourteen of those years were spent in Gabon as a
missionary with the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada. In 1997,
Don and his wife returned to Canada and at the age of 65 Don "retired"
from active service. Since then, Don has devoted every spare minute to
developing a hobby, namely the building, repairing or upgrading of
computers for seniors. In a span of 12 years, Don learned computer skills
on his own and restored over 1,000 computers as a gift to Senior Citizens
(including house calls).

Four years ago he was invited to go to Burkina Faso (BF) in West Africa to
repair computers in several schools, including High Schools and Municipal
Schools as well as at a Relief and Development headquarters in Bobo
Dioulassou. Because of his wife's failing health he couldn't go at that time.
His wife passed away in 2007 and last summer (2008) he flew to Africa
(BF) as a volunteer and gave three weeks of training to six trainees in
repairing, maintaining and troubleshooting computers. In addition to
helping his host agency a National Relief and Development Agency in BF
(ACCEDES) he assisted a large Municipal High School, a Technical School
and two Muslim High Schools.

That experience showed him what needed to be done and gave birth to
this project.

PROJECT GOAL:

To bring computer and Internet access Technology to High Schools,
Hospitals and Clinics, Theological Training Institutes, National Church
Radio Stations, as well as several National Relief and Development
Agencies in three (3) countries of West Africa: Burkina Faso, Guinea and
Mali.

IMPLEMENTATION PLAN:

(1) Undertake negotiations with each targeted country to lay a solid base
for this project, to eliminate surprises and prepare in writing the
foundation for this cooperative effort.
(2) As soon as a “leader” is assigned in each targeted country, local
research with governmental authorities will need to be done to clear
the way for the importation of equipment and technology.
(3) The planning will include the determination of equipment
needed and the estimated costs of materials and shipping.
(4) Funding for this project must be secured and needs to be
worked on now.
(5) The scheduling for the shipping of equipment and the installation
times as well as travel times will be finalized with the pilot project
commencing in N'zao, Guinea in 2010.

Contact Don or read more from his blog
http://sites.google.com/site/africapro9project/