OLE Nepal

This Center became formally established as a non-governmental organization in the spring of 2007. It now has a full time staff of six people and several volunteers. Visit their website.

OLE Nepal has negotiated a formal Memorandum of Understanding with the Nepali Department of Education to conduct a pilot project in the spring of 2008. This will involve a controlled study of the impact of using the XO laptop in a rural school setting. OLE has assisted OLE Nepal in applying for financial support from the Danish IT Society; DANIDA, the Danish program of foreign assistance; and the United Bank of Switzerland foundation.

OLE Nepal has also received start-up financial support from OLE Board member John Cook and from OLE. The Danish IT Society, in an early indication of their commitment to OLE Nepal, ordered 200 XO laptops for delivery in time for the beginning of the Nepali school year in April 2008.

OLE Nepal has strong leadership and is proving to be a valuable learning ground for OLE as a whole, enabling it to adjust its strategy at an early stage of OLE’s development. OLE Nepal’s staff has largely worked as unpaid volunteers in the early stages of the Center’s work.

Board Members:

  • Dr. Pratibha Pandey, Chairperson — Directorof the CIWEC Medical Clinic in Kathmandu, former instructor at Harvard Medical School
  • Mohan Das Manandhar, Vice Chairperson — Director of the ACE Institute of Management, expert on organizational development
  • Anil Chitrakar, General Secretary — Leading environmentalist and clean energy advocate
  • Satish Krishna Kharel, Secretary — Attorney, leading expert on telecommunications and cyber-law
  • Siddhant Raj Pandey, Treasurer — CEO of ACE Development Bank
  • Jyoti Man Sherchan, Member — Career educator, Director of Malpi International School and actively
    involved in education projects for rural schools
  • Sudhindra Sharma, Member — Sociologist, Research Expert in Interdisciplinary Analysis

Leadership

  • Rabi Karmacharya — Executive Director
  • Dr. Saurav Dev Bhatta — Education Director
  • Rajeev Adhikari — Government Affairs
  • Upaya Sharma — Finance Manager
  • Mahabir Pun — Community Relations
  • Bryan Berry — External Relations

Partners

About Nepal

Nepal is a landlocked country located between China and India. Approximately 29 million Nepali inhabit Nepal and approximately 48.6% of those above the age of 15 are considered literate. The Nepali are primarily Hindu and have a diverse set of languages, the most common of which being Nepali, Maithali and Bhojpuri.

The country of Nepal is prone to severe flooding, drought and famine depending on the length of the monsoon season. Current concerns include deforestation, contaminated water and wildlife conservation.

Nepal has been a constitutional monarchy, but is in transition to a republic.

How you can help

All OLE Centres currently require a breadth of public and private sector partnerships. Participation among individuals and industries, government, and independent NGOs are all vital to the creation and sustainability of local OLE Centers, as well as the growth and success of their particular models for ensuring universal basic education by 2015.

The individuality of local circumstances, and the methods for addressing local learning systems also means that every OLE Centre offers unique investment possibilities.

How you can help with OLE Nepal:

  • Math and English language learning materials, particularly activities developed in Squeek, or other open educational resources that take advantage of the Suger operating system and applications (such as Tam-Tam) native to the XO laptop produced by One Laptop Per Child.
  • Participation in developing Nepal’s ICT infrastructure, particularly wifi stations extending out from OLE Nepal schools into surrounding areas.
  • Teacher development/education materials, expertise and on-the-ground teacher-training volunteers
  • OLE Consortium members are thankful for help with translation of learning resources from Nepali into English, Spanish, Mandarin, French and Arabic. If you can help translate, or contribute to the cost of translation, we will be very grateful.

For more information visit their website.