UNRWA to hand 200,000 laptops to Gaza schoolchildren

Apr 29, 2010, 16:26 GMT

Gaza - The United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) began Thursday distributing the first of 200,000 portable computers to schoolchildren in the Gaza Strip, as part of an educational project, a statement from the organization said.

A non-profit organization called 'One Laptop Per Child' (OLPC) is partnering with UNRWA for the initiative, the statement said.

'By the year 2012, around half a million Palestinian refugees in the Middle East will join the new learning opportunities and will join the modern system of education by having a laptop,' it read.

Around 70 percent of the 1.5 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are refugees, receiving educational and medical services from UNRWA.

'Core to our mission is providing the world's most isolated and vulnerable children access to modern forms of education and the opportunities that follow,' said OLPC Chairman Nicholas Negroponte.

The initiative is also supported by the Jordanian Hashemite Charitable Organization (JHCO) and the Office of President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.

UNRWA said that 200 teachers have already been trained and more than 150 electronic learning modules are being adapted for use on the computers.

'OLPC and UNRWA are also collaborating on the formatting of electronic textbooks and workbooks for an entire primary school curriculum,' UNRWA said.

The Gaza Strip has been under a tight Israeli blockade since Hamas seized control of the salient in June 2007.