OLE Nepal’s team met Mr. Bhola Nath Sharma during a visit to install E-Pustakalaya at Moti Community Library in Phalebas, Parbat district, and were immediately impressed by his dedication to help uplift his community. People of Phalebas have great respect for Mr. Sharma and for his contributions towards community development. Moti Community Library, Radio Parbat, Helping Hands Health Clinic and Bhawani Bidyapith H.S. School are some of the institutions he currently heads. He is in his seventies, but that has not stopped him from working day and night on community development. During our two days’ stay at Phalebas, we found him to be busy with meetings and events all day long. We often found him suggesting villagers the different ways to make Moti Community Library a self sustainable one.

Moti Community Library Building

Mr. Bhola Nath Sharma discussing library issues with community

This time, Bhola Jee has initiated to establish a digital library within Moti Community Library Building. Nepal Library Foundation helped in provisioning server, desktop computers and network equipments while OLE Nepal provided the E-Pustakalaya (digital library system) replete with thousands of books, educational videos, learning software, and reference materials such as the wikipedia and dictionary. OLE Nepal’s technical team of Mr. Ram Singh and Mr. Basanta Shrestha installed the digital library and gave orientation to local teachers and users on how to use this repository.

The  team reached Phalebas after a ten-hour bus ride from Kathmandu. Moti Community Library is housed in a three-storeyed, well furnished building that stood just a few meters away from a small village house which used to be old Moti Community Library. Radio Parbat, the Health Clinic and Bhawani Bidyapith School were all within 150 meters area of the Library. The Library rents out few rooms for commercial purpose to help cover the operational costs of the Library. The building also has a Bal Bikas Room for early childhood development purposes. This room has a huge collection of toys and books, and it gives a glimpse of an expensive “montessori based” schools of Kathmandu. Books and materials in the library and “Bal Bikas” were contributed by Read Nepal and Room to Read.

The Library does not have a lot of books. But it is big, spacious and very well organized. The team installed the E-Pustakalaya server in the adjoining smaller office room. But before installing the software in the newly purchased computers, the team had to assemble tables that were still in the boxes that were shipped from Kathmandu. Assembling table was something the team was not prepared for, and it took quite a bit of effort, but we had fun doing it.

E-Pustakalaya being accessed from Linux workstations. Server and WiFi routers are also seen in the picture.

Mr. Basanta Shrestha showing educational videos during orientation

After completing the installation of the digital library, the team conducted an orientation program to local people. Nearly 20 people gathered in the E-Pustakalaya room for the event. Participants included librarians, school teachers and students. One distinguished participant was a famous village boy with a voracious reading habit who was known for reading 610 books from the Library in one month. The orientation briefed about the E-Pustakalaya System, followed by detailed demonstration of several sections of E-Pustakalaya. Participants were also given brief introduction of Ubuntu/Linux System and its basic operation. E-Pustakalaya server and all the workstations were installed with Linux System. Linux System are free, stable and very less prone to computer viruses.

Mr. Ram Singh posing with the famous village boy who read 610 books from the Library in one month.

One of the teachers from a nearby village got really impressed by variety of contents of E-Pustakalaya and asked how much would it cost if he wanted to do the whole setup at his school. Later, Bhola Jee pointed out the benifits of digital library to the participants. He further asked us to share the success stories of digital library in other program districts. We then gave example of Pancha School in Kapilvastu about how they are taking maximum benefit of E-Pustakalaya not only to educate students but also to promote literacy amongst mothers of the children and the whole community.

After a long wait networking at Doti finally started in mid of November 2011. Initially, it was planned for June/July 2011. But heavy downpour and poor weather conditions made it impossible to work during monsoon season. All the equipments required for the networking were already in place and had been moved to the World Food Program Dadeldhura office by the end of June, making travel much lighter and hassle free (even then our luggage was overweight by 15 kg, but we were able to convince airport crew about our project and didn’t have to pay for the extra weight).

With detail plan and preparation, networking team (Ram Krishna Singh and Basanta Shrestha) boarded Buddha Airways for Dhangadhi on Nov 18th. At Dhangardi, in hazy evening we strolled down in search of iron poles required to hold antenna in place and make them stable. One of the main reason of unstable Internet connections in the existing schools and relay points at Dadeldhuda, we found, was due to the constant wavering of the antenna position. This time, with these poles in  relay points and schools, we wanted to negate this effect to large extent. At Puri Suppliers, Chauraha we bought around 35 ft of iron pipes and had them cut to pieces, of required length. We walked back to hotel discussing next day’s plan.

At Silugadi, our first task was to get new ADSL line from Nepal Telecom Office. Before getting a line, we talked to a NT staff, who had agreed to put relay at his home in our survey visit. But to our surprise and dismay, he started asking for personal favor. We were in no position to meet his demand and instantly started working on alternate plan. Fortunately, near by Ncell tower, there was a FM station, Saileshwori FM, with ADSL line.  We approached them and discussed about possibility of sharing the ADSL line. Station manager was very excited about our OLPC project and  was more than happy to help us for which he thought is noble cause. After meeting, Basanta started his at FM station, and I walked to the Ncell tower to manage a separate power line for our antenna.

Ncell tower supervisor, Besh Raj, was waiting for us at Silugadi tower.  We asked him if he can arrange a helper to fix antenna at Ncell tower. Besh Raj was very amicable and managed one college student Lokendra, who later on turned out to be a very quick learner and remained with us for good 10 days. With the help of Lokendra, we fixed two antennas at Ncell tower, Silgadi one pointing towards Khatigaun Ncell tower and other to Mauwa relay point. Satisfied with day’s work we went back to lodge [Lord Buddha] where we have set up our base.

Early in the morning, Lokendra showed up in the lodge with his friend Basanta and we were team of four. After an hours drive from Silgadi, we reached Khatigaon  and fixed two antennas in Ncell tower one pointing Silgadi and other to Mahadev school relay house. Another major relay point was Ncell tower at Mauwa VDC. After long discussion, we planned to connect Mauwa relay point to Silgadi first, then connect Khatigaon to School Relay house later, and accordingly headed towards Mauwa.

Near by Mauwa Ncell tower, in the direction of Silgadi, there was small hillock which blocked clear visibility of Ncell tower at Silgadi. But we kept working hoping that it won’t affect much. By this time, WFP staff Rajan Khatiwada got so much interested in our work that he started climbing up and down the Ncell tower(which normal people including me would not dare) and fix the clamp and antenna. After completing setup we tried connecting it to Silgadi relay point, but it didn’t work out. Tried all the tricks but in vain. Tired and frustrated we all came back to local lodge “Nawaraj Ko Hotel”. One good thing about this lodge is it’s food. Highly recommended lodge to be in if you ever happen to visit this place.

Next, we sent Lokendra to Silgadi end to fine tune antenna while we stayed back. There was load shedding in Silgadi and couldn’t test connection till afternoon. We fine tuned antenna at both end but still there was no sign of any connection. At this point, we cursed ourselves for not learning  ”Radio Mobile” software and checking the viability of connection in this software before implementing it.

Radio Mobile is a free and powerful tool used to predict the performance of a radio system. It uses digital terrain elevation data for automatic extraction of path profile between an emitter and a receiver. This data is added to system, environmental and statistical parameters to feed the Irregular Terrain Model radio propagation model. Elevation data is also used to produce virtual maps in background. Radio Mobile  can be used to plot coverage and design radio links. It is able to create plot that is as accurate as the plot from expensive commercial packages used by my hardware vendors.

Lesson learnt, from now on, we will make sure that performance and viability of connection of the radio system in Radio Mobile is checked prior to its implementation.

Here we were on the 7th day(25th Nov) of the actually planned 12 days trip with nothing working on our favour. We haven’t connected even a single relay point, forget about the schools. Team members, specially Basanta, was having sleepless night with constant coughing. Frustration and fatigue started showing up in the form of irritation and differences among the team member even in minor issues. In the evening, wearing long faces, we were shambling around the Mauwa tower and approached to near by hillock to have a view towards Silgadi. To our surprise and entirely unexpected, Silgadi relay point and both schools Sri Saraswati & Durga Primary were visible from this vantage point. Suddenly with renewed hope we discussed connecting Saraswati and Durga school with Silgadi via Khatiwada gaon and Bajh ko Mod relay points. With this new plan and little remaining hope, we came back to Silgadi, arranged necessary equipments for new Khatiwada relay point and Saraswati Primary School. We called and explained our new plan to Shiva Raj Khadga sir from Saraswati and asked to make necessary arrangement accordingly.

Next day, before heading to Khatiwada gaon, we fine tuned the antenna, checked and reconfirmed the connection at Silugadi tower. After 2 and half hours walk, we reached the destination. After short discussion and agreement with principle at Shree Devi school at Khatigaon, we used this point as one of the relay point as we had planned the previous day. With clear line of sight and shorter distance, connecting these two points were pretty easy.

After successful connection, I left Khatiwada gaon for Silgadi early in the morning, picked up the necessary equipment and headed towards the “Bajh ko Mode” relay point. By mid day, I was there at the Bajh, but to our utter dismay, there was no electricity in that location which could power our relay point. After much dialogue and considerations among team members and teachers, we decided to use Khema[Principle, Durga Primary School] madam’s house as a relay point. By this time, Basant was working at Saraswati school and had completed installation at his end. With little fuss, we were able to connect Khatiwada relay point and Saraswati school. Heart full of thanks goes to Shankar Khadga sir, principle from Saraswati Primary School, for all hard work and effort he has put in, in installing relay point at Khema mam’s place. Basanta went and connected Durga school to Saraswati School without much complain. Mission accomplished. With this success, we were gaining back our confidence and lost vigor. We had at least something to show and report at office.

Finally, with much relief and day’s work we walked down to the village to watch Bhauwa Dance with free flowing Theula.

With hangover and Bhauwa tune still lingering in our head, we contacted OLE Office, updated our status and discussed about possibility/viability of connecting Mahadev school, with 8 relays in between, to source at Silgadi. After much analysis and consideration, we decided not to connect Mahadev School for timebeing.

There still were some works left to be done before returning back to Dadheldhura. The antennas those were mounted at Mouwa and Khatigaun Ncell tower had to be dismantled and taken back along. The following day we called for WFP vehicle from Dadheldhura, picked up our local antenna mount expert Lokendra from his college at Silgadi and went to Khatigaun to dismantle the antenna. We set out for Dadeldhura at about 3 pm. Our arrival to Tufaan Danda was delayed by an hour because on our way back the road was blocked because of an accident between a truck and passenger Jeep. It was very difficult to figure out whose mistake was it but as it was apparent, the truck had gone out of its way and hit the jeep.

The following days we visited schools in Haat, Hamtad and Budum, updated the softwares on laptops and school servers and maintained their school network.

The E-Pustakalaya team has planned to start the new year by introducing new features to our website and upgrading much of our system. Some of these features are easily noticeable by users while, some will be running in the background (I don’t want to ruin the surprise but we are hoping that it is what our users want.).

With the constant expansion of our content and features it is only natural that our system would require further upgrades. We want to make sure that these changes will appear on Jan 1st hence, we will be closing down our regular service for a week (26-31 Dec). This year we have had a lot of feedback from our users most of them have provided us with suggestions about certain features that would add to the overall user experience. We value the feedback we get and we will be trying to include all these features and much more by Jan 1st.

This festive season as Nepalis celebrate Christmas, Tol Lhosar, Tamu Lhosar and the start of Year 2012 we hope our maintenance work will not dampen the holiday spirit.

Wishing and thanking all our users the very best we leave knowing that we will see you all at the start of 2012!!!

OLE Nepal’s bimonthly newsletter for September-October 2011 (Issue 11) can be accessed at:

http://olenepal.org/ole_newsletter/issue11/OLENepal_Newsletter_SepOct_2011.pdf

If you wish to subscribe to the newsletter, please email to newsletter@olenepal.org.

OLE Nepal’s bimonthly newsletter for July-August 2011 (Issue 10) can be accessed at:

http://www.pustakalaya.org/view.php?pid=Pustakalaya:2679

If you wish to subscribe to the newsletter, please email newsletter@olenepal.org.

OLE Nepal recently signed an agreement with the British Council to host ‘Learn English Kids (LE Kids)’ interactive software in the E-Pustakalaya. LE Kids teaches fundamentals of the English language to children and adults through the use of audio visual effects and flash animations.  In this regard, it is similar to OLE Nepal’s E-Paath activities, but the scope of LE Kids is not qualified to any curriculum. The partnership has expanded the reach of LE Kids to nearly 3400 students in 34 schools spread across ten districts in Nepal where OLE Nepal has implemented ICT-integrated classes using the OLPC model. By integrating the LE Kids in the digital library hosted in local servers, schools no longer require Internet connectivity to benefit from these activities. OLE Nepal has always emphasized the need for quality learning materials like LE Kids in order to realize a meaningful impact on children’s learning through computers. By making these activities freely available to everyone, the British Council has done a great service to students and learners who otherwise would have been deprived of this great tool to improve their English language skills.

LE Kids provides its users with a multitude of options such as solving puzzles, painting, reading, playing games and listening to songs. All of these choices enable people to learn day to day English. This can be something as simple as knowing English terms for food items sold at shopping centres or teaching comprehension skills with its various read and solve quizzes.

LE Kids also contains two person general knowledge quizzes. These quizzes allow healthy competition among children, teach children (and adults) interesting facts about our changing world and also enable and encourage kids to share their computers. This will be very useful for students in rural schools where even with the generous numbers of XO laptops provided by OLE Nepal there is a need to share. Some of the quiz questions also explain why an answer is incorrect. For example a question regarding the largest lake in the world has as an incorrect option the deepest lake in the world, lake Baikal. Thus, even while answering incorrectly children can learn a new fact as well as understand that there are differences between similar concept words such as ‘large’ and ‘deep’.

My favourite section in LE Kids is the Short Story section. The user has fifty two stories to choose from. Apart from being able to read along with the stories some of them are also interactive. The ‘Spycat’ story for example allows the children to solve the clues that Spycat discovers. This technique allows children to remain engaged with the story and not lose focus.

We can say with certainty that both students and teachers will greatly benefit from LE Kids activities as content to build English language skills is scarce. One can access LE Kids from the E-Pusatkalaya homepage. It is conveniently located in the upper right hand panel of the homepage under the title ‘अंग्रेजी भाषा सिकौँ’ (‘Learn English Kids’ in our English interface). Any one who has tried LE Kids will find it fun and appealing to the intellect.

OLE Nepal’s newsletter for March – April 2011 ( issue 8 ) is now available. The newsletter intends to keep its readers up to date on the organisation and its activities.

The full newsletter can be accessed at:

http://www.olenepal.org/ole_newsletter/issue8/OLE_Nepal_Mar-Apr_2011_Newsletter.pdf

If you wish to subscribe to the newsletter, please email newsletter@olenepal.org.