COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT TEAM (CET)

WHAT IS CET?
With the transition from flood relief to the educational needs of the Bihar community in 2009, the focus of the ASB Bihar Relief Team changed, creating a new group in 2010 called ASB Community Empowerment Team (CET), which still exists today.  With CET came a new mission, ¨to enhance underprivileged Indian communities to become self sustainable through means of education and empowerment.¨  While CET was made up of many of the same students from the Bihar Relief Team, it focused on educational projects in Bihar and also branched out to a local underprivileged Indian community, Khairat Village. CET now had two clear focuses: 
1.) Educational projects in Bihar 
2.) Enhance a pre-existing One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Program in Khairat Village
EMBRACING INDIA 2010
ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD (OLPC)
In 2010, CET developed a relationship with Khairjat Village School, a small one room school house, situated just two hours outside of Mumbai.  The OLPC program in Khairat village was a pilot program and the first of its kind in India when it was started in 2007.  The CET students focused much of their attention on teaching the students of Khairat Village how to use new programs on their XO OLPC computers. They also mentored the teachers on how to use the vast number of programs on the XO computers, and on developing instructional practices to enhance student learning through technology integration.  

MY ROLE 
Although I was the teacher advisor for CET, the students truly took the lead and developed the program as I took the role of facilitator, attending meetings run by them, and taking care of organizational logistics with fundraisers, transportation, and approving their initiatives with ASB administration.  Embrace India, CET's largest community education and fundraising event, raised funds for Khairat Village's OLPC Program.  I continued to organize many aspects of Embrace India, including facilitating student involvement.  It is now five years after the first Embrace India, and it is still an important tradition at ASB.  This year, the ASB community will celebrate Embrace India's 5th annual cultural and fundraising event.  


 OLPC INFORMATION


EMBRACE INDIA 2009