Africa Project

Patriensa
Techno-guru Dr. Osei Darkwa has big dreams for this remote Ghanan village where the average income hovers beneath $1 a day. The only problem is, there's not enough power. When we first meet Darkwa in 2002, he is hard at work perfecting the Patriensa Digital Village and struggling with the need for more electricity. The next year, Boston Globe reporter Nicholas Thompson visited the mud thatched huts of Patriensa and once again Darkwa's mission was still the main story.

This time, Darkwa is using his digital camera to photograph a local healer as she cuts a growth from a patient's arm and applies her potion of burnt snakes, boiled leaves, and dampened soil to the wound. "I want the world to know her," he says, as he heads home to upload the images to his website, using Flash animation, java scripts and African drum music.

Wiring Africa

Thompson, in his Globe article, claims Africa's problems are primarily traceable to its geographical location. When North African Egyptians first began writing before 3000 BC, the skill emigrated throughout Europe and South America before emerging south of the Sahara.

Today, the Patriensa Digital Village has a stellar web presence, introduced with riveting drum music and punctuated with a slide show of indigenous healers, adoha dancers, the community telecenter, and shots of villagers and their town.

The village came online in 2001, a collaboration between Ghana Computer Literacy and Distance Learning (GhaCLAD), the Asante Akim Multipurpose Community Center, and Greenstar. Greenstar, an international nonprofit that builds solar powered community centers in developing countries, had studied the village carefully before choosing it as a model for solar development.

Characterized by low literacy and high unemployment rates, nearly 3/4 of Patriensa is agricultural. The community center is a hub for tele-education, health services, and agricultural information. Through its work with Greenstar, the people of the village have begun digitization of their music, art, and other aspects of their culture. This affiliation involves marketing their arts to the global community through the Greenstar website.

Dr. Darkwa, who returned to Patriensa from his post at the University of Illinois, founded GhaCLAD. He writes extensively on the role of ICT in development.

Research on ICT
Creating Virtual Learning Communities in Africa

 

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