Assignment # 4

Create a toy or game that connects children in a first world country with children in a third world country.

I decided to work with connecting children in Madagascar ages 11-13 with children in United states ages 11-13.

I read 2 interesting articles so far on children in Madagascar that helped me develop some ideas.

Research

Education in Madagascar

“We were never allowed to talk in class or look at our classmates, but this year, everything is different.” explains Normella. “First of all, we no longer sit in rows, but in a ‘U’ shape so that we can see each other. Then, in the afternoon, our teacher divides us into groups so that we can discuss the day’s homework.

“I like this method because it is often easier to understand what your schoolmate is saying, rather than your teacher,” she concludes.

Peer to Peer in Madagascar

“In the morning, after getting ready, I go to fetch Nadia,” she says. “I wash her feet, I brush her hair, and I check her bag to see that she has everything she needs. And then we leave for school and I hold her hand.

“When we get to school, all the classes are already lined up. So I put Nadia with her class and I go to my class’s line.”

My thoughts

From these two articles I learned that Madagascar has high drop out rates. UNICEF came in and introduced a compotency based learning system, in 2003 which has been helping to increase children interest in school. Madagascar is one of the countries that has the highest repetition and drop-out rates. Also I learned that UNICEF introduced a big sister program which encourages older girls to become sisters to younger girls to help them stay in school. It seems that more girls drop out of school then boys and particularly it is hard for them to get past the 1st grade.

These findings are very distrubing living in the united states these things are not talked about so it was sad to discover the lack of will in children to go to school. Also the fact that they drop out of school at such an young age especially little girls. Dropping out of school in any grade level is unacceptable, but in the 1st grade it is totally unacceptable. It represents a total failure of the system and not just the third world but the first world countries as well. Our focus should be less on war and more on educating and helping the world in important matters like these.










For my project I want to find a way to connect Madagascar girls with United states girls. Ages 6-11. I changed the age range because I think it was a good idea for older peers to encourage younger peers. I want my project to show these girls that learning is fun and at such a ripe age that is what it should be about having fun but at the same time learning. Hopefully I want to design an idea where united states children can be an encouragement to Madagacar children and drive them to stay in school because of the relationships they establish with these girls as well as the fun they are having learning and sharing with them.

Extra Info

• People in Madagacar speak french or their native langauage Malagasy
• They wear european styled clothes and dye their hair.
• They sell their music on the internet to different countries
• 75% of population are farmers their chief crop is rice
• Child development age 6-8
• Internet usage in Africa
  

Ideas

• Game played by mail
• Sending each other fairy tales of their country
• Mail piece of something that eventually would create a bigger object
• Prehaps fairy tales will be written in each native country language, each native country girl would be in an big sister program. The big sisters would be given the materials neccessary to translate the story to their little sister.
• Make a bear or plushie toy with sound to send to each other
• Each child gets a tamagotchi and sends to other child to take care of. Writes each other reports about the tamagotchi and gets big sister to translate them.
  

Precedents

Discovery Site
Build a Bear Workshop
Make your own book
Tamagotchi