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Ask Slashdot: Geeky Volunteer Work?
An anonymous reader writes "I plan to be in-between jobs for 1-2 months later this year and use part of this time to do some volunteer work in Africa. My naive question: what to do and where to go? Is it possible to make good use of the skill-set of a typical geek? Any interesting projects worth supporting on-site?"
What is a "typical" geek? Are you a programmer? Do you work with hardware? Can you do science? Are you an environmental engineer? A teacher? I don't know much about Africa, but someone who does is going to need to know more about you.
Depending on your skill set Geek Corps might have something for you:
http://www.iesc.org/ict-and-applied-technologies.aspx
http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/58011
But don't take skills away from the community. If you're going to contribute, don't replace someone who is already doing the job, and don't remove the need for the community to engage someone locally to do the job.
Going in to train others to do some sort of techincal work is good, but you have to remember that their values and yours won't really mesh, and you can't force people to learn C++ when they really want to use Basic.
There are plenty of good projects wherever you happen to be right now. Schools (public and private), libraries, senior centers are all always looking for volunteers to help make their environments better places for those who use their services. Sure its not as impressive as going overseas to do some work, but it also has many headaches that the overseas visit will not.
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Don't go into it so narrowly focused -- do whatever they need you to do. Who cares if they are running open source if they need fresh drinking water.
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Go ahead and volunteer outside of your comfort area. You might find that you like doing something "different". At a bare minimum you'll learn something new.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I spent three years in Africa (South Africa and Zambia) doing geek work. Here's the deal, you can't do something "important" in one or two months, so don't plan on being the knight in shining armor coming in to help. However, if you go in with an attitude of humility and a desire to learn, you can be helpful.
My suggestion, based on my experience: Most of the NGOs I worked with had crappy old donated computers running some pirated version of XP, full of viruses. You could be a great help by finding a local (i.e. Africa run, not international aid agency) NGO and helping to clean up their computers, install anti-virus, get their printers working etc etc. Good computer support is in short supply, so folks do what they can but it's not easy. If you are thinking about this, also bring along a box of CDs or DVDs with latest versions of software, because getting on the internet is either impossible or slow or really expensive, so doing on-line updates is a pain.
I tried teaching people to use Ubuntu with limited success, everyone wanted Windows with Word, because that was what everyone else was using, and that was what was "known". It's a good solution, but without support falls down like everything else.
Good luck, let us know how it all worked out.
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I have not had the time to join the local chapter, but I'd very much like to learn more.
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Why not try them? They had been focusing primarily on Mexico and Central America with a secondary focus on Africa. Couldn't hurt to drop them a line and see what activities they have going on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeks_Without_Borders
Good luck!
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Africa is kind of a big place. There are something like 50 countries there, all with different kinds of people, politics, and needs. it might help if you indicted where in Africa you were planning on going. Once you pick a country, are you planning on going to a large metropolitan city, a medium city, a small town or village, or what? Does the place you are going to have an industrial or economic base or are the people there just subsistence living? Like other places in the world Africa has a mix of all of this.
Without further information I would give the same advice that I would give any geek looking for volunteer work anywhere in the world (or at home): Find activities that inspire others to be smart, inquisitive, and have a passion to figure out how stuff works. Focus on the young.
Hackersforcharity.org
I highly recommend reading the blog, and maybe contacting Johnny. Reading their blog gives a good feel about what tech charity work in Africa can and cannot do, from someone who gave up their career to do it.
For those who want to volunteer closer to home, http://www.nten.org/ has national and local resources. Their local affiliated NCtech4good group seems to be doing good things in my area, I've only found them recently myself.
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One of the local clubs may have a contingent going somewhere internationally to help set up fresh drinking water, or fighting polio, or building a bridge, or starting a library (my club is doing the last two). It's a good way to help without having to get exceptionally bogged down with the administrative and political details of international assistance.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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Ubuntu was founded by an African. Helping out with Ubuntu is probably the best way to help Africa. I recommend installing Ubuntu on your computer, as well as any other computers you have access to (your friends, parents, library computers, etc). And spread the word on blogs, forums, mailing lists etc.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I don' t know the specifics of this operation. Maybe it is the one exception that proves the rule and it is a great idea. However, I should point out (if not for your colleague's sake at least for that of others who might be contemplating to do the same thing) that the consensus among aid scholars/professionals is that gifts-in-kind shipped from abroad are generally a bad idea. Why? Many different reasons:
1) Shipping is expensive. Not so much the actual journey across the seas (although it is still a factor, especially with bulky equipment such as computers), but just the logistics involved. It takes time to ship things overseas and this has an opportunity cost. Overall, it is usually estimated to be much cheaper to just source everything locally. Including labor whenever possible, which is most of the time since a project that relies crucially on foreign expertise to continue is likely to be a bad idea in the first place. If you actually go there, you'll end up doing unqualified/semi-qualified work that locals could do just as well, if not actually better. Are there no IT people in Ghana who can set up a computer lab? I'm pretty sure there are.
2) It might not be what people need. Would you be happy if you had to maintain a computer lab made up of second-hand computers that might have been refurbished but are still more prone to hardware failures than new equipment and that additionally has two dozen different kinds of hardware and software because different donors all gave whatever they had at their disposal? This would be a nightmare for any organization (there is a reason why many universities/companies standardize on 1 brand/basic configuration and stick with it as much as possible). It's the same in the developing world.
3) It promotes false ideas about developing countries. In most cases, the problem is NOT that whatever people want or need is not available locally. The problem is that people are poor and don't have enough money to purchase these goods. Electronics, including PC and parts, are available in Africa. Especially in a country like Ghana. For the matter, there are Dell distributors in Ghana and virtually all African countries. There are also wholesalers that carry all the parts that you might want to buy, that will sell you computers that are suited to your needs, etc.
Overall, you're much better staying at home and donating the money that you'd have spent on a plane ticket to a reputable NGO or to your local partners (e.g. the school). It's even better since it allows *them* to prioritize their spending. Maybe they have a roof that needs fixing and that might be more important than setting up a computer lab.
By all means, do come to Africa. It's an experience that will change your life. It did change mine. Am stuck here for 6 years and enjoying every single day of it.
And drop me a line when you want to join us for hacking or a beer.
There's nothing wrong with that. But you have to be realistic. Giving $2000 to a food shelter buys that shelter $2000 worth of food, or 1 to 1 return. Buying a $2000 plane ticket to somewhere in africa, to show up and do the equivalent of $100 worth of labor at local rates gives a 1 to 20 return. That's ok if you're considering $1900 of it to be a vacation, with a $100 donation. The $100 will still help...
With the USA rapidly transitioning from a 1st World to a 2nd World country you could volunteer to do a wide variety of Geeky activities in various locations there. And, you'd speak the language perfectly and understand the culture as well. Help rural people far from major population centers to connect to the Internet (which is no longer a luxury but a necessity), install or repair radios and TVs and their antennas, or repair mechanical or electrical devices. Ditto for bicycles, motorcycles and automobiles. Help poor families set up solar or wind generated electric power to run various low powered communication devices, lights and fans. Recycle old desktops and laptops by repairing them and installing a Linux distro on them, along with any business, education or entertainment applications they might need or want. For the $1K-1.5K cost of a round trip air flight to Africa you could buy a lot of laptop and desktop parts and 4GB USB sticks. Remember, charity begins at home.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Go to the tech college in Takoradi, Ghana and install a FabFi mesh network. The students have to go to an Internet cafe for network access. They were one of the Fab Academy labs this year but had trouble keeping up due to lack of access.
This might not be as basic as digging wells or whatever but is much more technical.
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This is something I have done, and I think you will find that 2 months is not enough time to make an impact in any domain, much less a geeky one. One thing to remember is that volunteers are not tightly supervised; their labor is free and therefore a lot of managers just let them float. You will have to manage yourself, which means getting to know the organization, its needs and its weaknesses, and then initiating your own project to work towards these. This takes time, my best guess is a year or so. What is more, if you do find yourself actually contributing something, you might find that you are actually hurting the locals more than helping because your free labor makes it impossible for a local to get paid doing what you do.
To be entirely honest, a better use of your time (and money, since volunteering is going to cost you) is to go to a poor area and try to contribute to the economy. Take a month of classes in the local language. Hire local organizations to show you around. Stay with a host family. Try to use your money to encourage sustainable growth.
I have done both of these, and I walked away from the latter feeling like I did a lot more good and I enjoyed myself a lot more.
Just my $0.02
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I know many that do exchanges to first world for the same reason.
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