Santa Clara Law professor Michelle Oberman is collecting used Kindle e-readers as part of Contextos, a program designed to give greater learning opportunities to children in El Salvador. As Prof. Oberman explained in an email message,
I’m working with a faculty member here at Santa Clara on a used Kindle project in El Salvador. The professor is working with local schools and an NGO called ConTextos (http://contextos.org/) to provide e-readers (preferably Kindles) to public school students who would otherwise lack access to reading materials.
It is hard to exaggerate the importance of the work ConTextos is doing in training teachers and supplying books. In El Salvador, poverty is endemic; 30% of the population lives on less than $1.25/day. Kids coming from impoverished homes with parents who can’t read often have no exposure to books until they start school. At school, students lack access to books and learn via rote memorization, copying and dictation. They are not exposed to actual books until 3rd grade, assuming any books are available even then. According to the El Salvador Ministry of Education, 22% of students abandon school before the third grade and nearly 40% drop out before grade 9.
Kindles can make a real impact by providing a method for students to secure access to countless texts throughout their education-something that is not economically feasible with actual paper books.
We are seeking old Kindles so we can help establish an e-reader lab in Suchitoto. Our goal is to collect at least 100 kindles, which would permit ConTextos to train all of the teachers in the village’s school system, as well as to provide multiple kindles with pre-loaded age-appropriate content for each classroom in the K-8 student population. The Kindles can be any generation or type, but they must be in working order.
If you have any used Kindle please consider mailing them to:
Santa Clara University – School of Law
Heafey Law Library
Attn: El Salvador Kindle Project
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95053
Interested individuals may visit the ConTextos site for more information about the organization and its mission.
