Les Enfants de l'Aïr
 
 Information Technology, a regional emancipation

Regrouping 600 members, Les Enfants de l'Aïr, which means "the Children of the Aïr, is a humanitarian association which aims at helping the Tuareg and Niger people from the Agadez region in Africa. Their goal is to bring about developmental projects completely adapted to these cultures. These actions must improve their way of life, helping them become more autonomous.

Working in collaboration with local, territorial and national officials Les Enfants de l'Aïr takes action in the areas of health, education, the environment and agro-alimentation.
A mission is carried out each year. A truck convoy travels from Montauban, France to Agadez, Niger loaded with tons of material such as medical and surgical supplies, school supplies and seeds and plants necessary for local farmers. Upon arrival, the goods are distributed to health centres or directly to the people. After distribution, a local committee surveys the proper use of the donations.

The Steria Foundation-Institut de France has made a commitment to
Les Enfants de l'Aïr


The Steria Foundation-Institut de France works with the association on three projects:

donation of computers, printers and monitors delivered by the association's convoy

training of public and private employees for hardware and software maintenance,

teacher training of advanced software.

News

For the last 4 years, the Steria Foundation has supported various actions that have resulted in IT rooms being set up at the EMAIR school of engineering and at Tagama and Dagmanet secondary schools.

Latest news

In June 2007, a rebellion took place in the Aïr area, let by the Niger Movement for Justice. The area remains unsafe and the 2008 missions have been postponed.

2006/2007 Missions

Steria volunteer missions left for Niger in March and November 2006 and one in March 2007. This enabled to visit the IT rooms in previous years, to check the state of equipment and to train the teachers of the EMAIR and of the CES/Tagama school on how to administer the network. The pupils of both establishments were then able to set up a PC network in the IT room in their school. A third secondary school was equipped in Dagmanet and a fourth is being assessed in Tchirozérine. Finally, following contacts made with the Nigerian authorities linked to the Education Ministry and various local actors, a prospective study on the various fields of intervention including ICT in Niger was carried out.

Mission 2004/2005

In Tagama, from October 2004 to June 2005, 456 students benefited from IT training classes, provided by Fundation voluteers. According to the school Director, no other secondary school in Niger has such an IT room. Over 80 IT systems and 3 laser printers were installed in 2004 and 15 PCs, printers, scanners and spare parts were supplied in 2005. Four persons were trained at the Agadez hospital and IT equipment was provided to two Internet cafes, in an effort to set up web access in Tagama.

 

For further information contact Dominique Lambert: dominique.lambert@fondationsteria.org