Laurel Elementary School met the College of Charleston’s Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team and learned about its Technology for Africa project. It promotes economic development by providing citizens in Cameroon, Africa, with smart board technology.
Michael Antonelli, Laurel Hill Elementary principal, and his staff, agreed to serve as an educational and smart board technology expert to the Technology for Africa project. Laurel Hill Elementary will support the SIFE team’s efforts by helping to design lesson plans, secure the smart board technology, and collect note books, pens and other education materials to be distributed to 150 school-aged children in the region of Foumban, Cameroon.
The SIFE team and its Technology for Africa project is located at the College of Charleston School of Business and is supported by Possibilities Without Borders, an international service-learning organization located in Mt. Pleasant.
In March 2009, seven College of Charleston SIFE students, a faculty advisor and one board member, traveled to Cameroon to set up three computer labs and teach entrepreneurship after successfully raising over $68,000 for the project. The SIFE team and Possibilities Without Borders are raising funds to send four College of Charleston students back to Cameroon in March 2011. The purpose of the trip is to equip an elementary school with smart board technology and introduce impoverished students to a new technological medium and open their eyes to the world.
