Directors: Henny Boeters, Kees Boeters, Ben Van Heeswijk, Bob Wilson and David Brian
Attendance:
Members: 10
Guests: Peter Tanner
Birthdays: None
Anniversaries: None
Meeting Date: April 28th, 2025 at the Anglican Parish Hall. After a wonderful dinner prepared by the ACW, Kees started the meeting by thanking the ladies in the kitchen.
Correspondence: None
Program: Reinout introduced his speaker Peter Tanner from the Chatham club
Peter spoke about RACHEL, the Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning, in NE and NW Guatemala which are very remote areas
RACHEL is in English, Spanish and French versions
RACHEL 1 started in Barillas, in NW Guatemala with planning in 2017 with 52 schools, 600 laptops and 10000 children,
Year 1 rollout in 2019 and year 3 in 2022
COVID caused a stop in rollout
RACHEL 2 is in Petén, in the NE, with year 1 rollout in 2022, with 16 schools, year 2 in 2023 with 17 schools and year 3 in 2024 with 17 more schools, for a total of 50 schools, 1000 laptops and 10000 students
RACHEL 3 was back in Barillas, with retraining students and teachers, hiring coordinators and 450 more laptops and another 16 schools
Each school has a RACHEL unit which is a Digital Wi-Fi Hotspot with 1 TB of information containing Wikipedia, teaching apps, libraries, textbooks and educational videos
The coordinators go to all of the schools in their area to support the teachers, tutor them and provide support
When COVID ended, school boards had laptops for sale, very cheaply and RACHEL was able to purchase them and ship them in bulk for $70 per Chromebooks laptop
They are now teaching Math, Science, Literature and Girl empowerment
RACHEL trainers teach the teachers to ask questions, not teach by rote
The students then access the WiFi, to find the answers to these questions
A few schools are in villages with no electricity, and have solar panels and a battery to power the laptops
There are many clubs involved in providing funding, including some in CK , Michigan, Alberta, Washington, California and Guatemala (Barillas and Tikan-Petén)
As time goes on, the project coordinators are learning more and more, including refresher courses for teachers and mentor courses, for 1 teacher in each school
They are continually adding to the project, by such things as having WiFi extenders that will allow community access to the library
Rachel 4 is in the works for July 2025
This is a truly amazing project and there was so much more that could be included here
Committees:
a) Bob: Car show
The planning is going well
b) Kees and Bob: Medical Equipment
They are looking for volunteers to help clean up the storage area
c) Brian: Easter Egg Hunt
The hunt went well, with the weather clearing for our event
Brian didn’t have to buy any candy, with enough handed in at the Independent office
Brian mentioned several suggestions based on thoughts from Rotarians who were there
We can look at implementing them next year
d) Paul: AIC (these weren’t actually given at the meeting)
Paul got 20 C-K lapel pins for each of the girls to give out when they are at AIC
They should be receiving all of their information this week from the Ottawa Rotary club
Sargeant-At-Arms: David K asked for any happy bucks
50-50 winner was Kees
Leader Kees asked if there was “Anything for the good of Rotary?”
Leader Kees closed the meeting at 8:00 pm
The next meeting is on: May 12, 2025, Murray Scoyne’s guest.
The theme for the 2024-25 Rotary year is“The Magic of Rotary”
L-R Rotarian Reinout von Martels and Chatham Rotarian Peter Tanner
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