Laptops to Lesotho

About Laptops to Lesotho

The mission of Laptops to Lesotho is to improve educational opportunities for children in rural Lesotho by providing access to laptop computers and the internet.    Our primary goal is to give each and every primary school-age child in the community access to a laptops, both at school and at home, for unstructured learning and discovery at their own pace.    Our second goal is to make this a community-run program. This idea was started by people in the community, and we want to serve merely as facilitators to help them achieve their goal. To this end, our team includes one to two staff members from each school who serve as project leaders and who manage on-the-ground operations. We work with the community throughout the entire process to ensure their continued, long-term participation. We mentor and train selected individuals in leadership, communication skills, and project management. We teach them fundraising and grant-writing.  Our plan is that within 2-3 years of receiving computers, the leaders at each school take over and run the project at their school all on their own. We use the unique XO laptops by the One Laptop Per Child organization designed specifically for children in less developed countries. The laptops are a fun way to expand on the basic classroom skills of reading, writing, and math. They can also be used to develop more advanced skills such as logic, conceptualization, and problem-solving. The operating system can be changed to a more advanced interface as the students’ computer skills progress.  We hope that these laptops will provide an avenue for growth and improvement in individual lives and in the community as a whole. We believe that truly successful solutions to the multitude of problems facing the people of Lesotho will come only when the Basotho devise and embrace solutions as their own. The best way to prepare them for that is through education and access to information, and the best time to reach them is when they are young.