In April, I'll be moving back home once I finish my school term which means I can make use of the $700 mustered up each month elsewhere. Apart from supporting missionaries and sponsoring children, I've been thinking of setting up a community shelter that doesn't offer food but literacy. I've always believed computer literacy to be the equalizer in the work force thus I believe anyone regardless of their past education can be brought up to par with today's computerization.
What this entails:
1) Location:
Renting a retail location is going to cost me an arm and a leg and since this will be a non-profit organization, I need to find a way to cover these kinds of expenses. One idea was to set up appointments with local companies and see if they would vacate a place they aren't using in exchange of lets say services. Another idea is to propose this need to Christian agencies such as Matthew House or Scott Mission. They have goods as well land donated to them frequently so perhaps some of this can be bummed off.
2) Equipment:
There are computer warehouse outlets that sell pentium II machines at about $25/machine and about $35/15" monitor. So 10 units to start with will cost about $600 in total.
3) Staff:
As mentioned earlier, it will be a non-profit organization and I don't plan to involve any sort of financial drama other than what comes out of my pocket. However this shelter cannot be maintained by a loner so I will need some staff to help me run this whole deal. Volunteering is a better word I suppose, volunteers will be hired in which this place will offer a chance to work for experience and resume purposes, free internet access and education on linux/hardware in exchange for staffing/monitoring the equipment.
4) Licensing:
To avoid licensing spiels and adding to the monopoly, all the systems will run distributions of Linux and use applications under the GNU/GPL
5) Bandwidth:
Cable/DSL/Dialup all routed
If this proposal is brought up to their offices, perhaps the cost of their services could be cut significantly? Bell and Rogers offer sporatic promotions like $120 rebate for 6 months. It would be great to get a long-term deal similar to those kinds of promotions.
These are just sketchy ideas and there's a lot of other cautions/concerns involved for example security, hygiene, censorship.
The purpose of this post is to ask for your thoughts and comments for better direction. I'd like to know if you think this is feasible or not, who I should collaborate with etc...
Thanks for your time.
What this entails:
1) Location:
Renting a retail location is going to cost me an arm and a leg and since this will be a non-profit organization, I need to find a way to cover these kinds of expenses. One idea was to set up appointments with local companies and see if they would vacate a place they aren't using in exchange of lets say services. Another idea is to propose this need to Christian agencies such as Matthew House or Scott Mission. They have goods as well land donated to them frequently so perhaps some of this can be bummed off.
2) Equipment:
There are computer warehouse outlets that sell pentium II machines at about $25/machine and about $35/15" monitor. So 10 units to start with will cost about $600 in total.
3) Staff:
As mentioned earlier, it will be a non-profit organization and I don't plan to involve any sort of financial drama other than what comes out of my pocket. However this shelter cannot be maintained by a loner so I will need some staff to help me run this whole deal. Volunteering is a better word I suppose, volunteers will be hired in which this place will offer a chance to work for experience and resume purposes, free internet access and education on linux/hardware in exchange for staffing/monitoring the equipment.
4) Licensing:
To avoid licensing spiels and adding to the monopoly, all the systems will run distributions of Linux and use applications under the GNU/GPL
5) Bandwidth:
Cable/DSL/Dialup all routed
If this proposal is brought up to their offices, perhaps the cost of their services could be cut significantly? Bell and Rogers offer sporatic promotions like $120 rebate for 6 months. It would be great to get a long-term deal similar to those kinds of promotions.
These are just sketchy ideas and there's a lot of other cautions/concerns involved for example security, hygiene, censorship.
The purpose of this post is to ask for your thoughts and comments for better direction. I'd like to know if you think this is feasible or not, who I should collaborate with etc...
Thanks for your time.
