My Project

First of all, thank you for your interest in me and my blog! It has already been a wonderful (and challenging) experience to make so many life changes, and I am grateful for all the support I received in this process. Also thanks for the great blog name ideas.

To give this blog some context, I thought I ought to begin with a brief explanation of the project I am working on. Please keep in mind (also for other postings) that a blog is not a truly private forum. Who knows who will discover this out there, and how they might use the information. Therefore, you will sometimes find me being vague.

After 15 years of teaching high school science, I decided not too long ago that I was ready for some change. I was in the fortunate position of being able to make this choice without the immediate guarantee of steady income. I realized that I could volunteer for a year or two as long as my basic living expenses were covered.

Then the question became what kind of volunteer work should I do? I investigated various options, with service in Africa being something that I was drawn to. I have traveled to Zambia three times before with school groups to bring laptop computers and provide computer training at a public secondary school here (see pictures). I am very grateful for the encouragement I received from my colleagues in this project. They helped me write and present to our sponsor a proposal to expand on our work in Zambia.

So, here I am in Lusaka, at least for the remainder of 2006. My goal is to research for my sponsor whether or not a new institution (possibly a post-secondary IT academy) would be feasible and useful here. In order to do this, I will need to make contacts with and interview various members of the business and educational community. This sort of networking and fact-finding is new for me, and I am looking forward to developing these skills.