WK Kellogg Foundation supports revolutionary agricultural 3D-interactive training project

Project start-up meeting - September 2006 – Worldlinks Office, Harare. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 "to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations." To achieve the greatest impact, the Foundation targets its grants toward specific areas. These include: health; food systems and rural development; youth and education; and philanthropy and volunteerism. Within these areas, attention is given to exploring learning opportunities in leadership; information and communication technology; capitalizing on diversity; and social and economic community development. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.

With the support of the WK Kellogg Foundation, World Links (Zimbabwe) and the Naledi3d Factory (South Africa) have jointly embarked on a unique two-year agricultural and life skills training initiative. Based on interactive 3D simulations and Virtual Reality, this project is set to revolutionise training in Africa and will also set a new benchmark for computer-based learning.

This two year project is aimed at creating an extensive number of cutting-edge agricultural 3D training simulations in the field of agriculture but will also form the first phase of a Rural Life Skills Programme with a focus on the upliftment of rural communities.

The first phase will focus on aspects of agriculture such as water and soil conservation with drought in mind, conservation farming, root crops and vegetable production, etc. Importantly, the learning material will be developed in such a way that others will be able to easily make the material available in other, local languages. Apart from implementation, one of World Links major roles will be to translate the material into Shona - a process that has become known as localisation.

An important aspect of the project will be to help people in rural areas to build confidence in their ability to build rural communities that better understand; and are better empowered to address issues that impact on their own rural development.

The project started off in early September with an initial planning workshop in Harare, which has now laid the foundation for an exciting development and implementation work over the next two years. The WK Kellogg Foundation is one of the foremost donors in Africa with a stated mission of "helping people to help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations".

World Links Southern Africa, co-ordinated from Harare, has two Service Centres in Harare, the regional office and the country office and is also active in 45 Zimbabwe school and community-based centres through its mission to improve educational outcomes and employment opportunities for rural youth and adults through the use of ICT and the Internet.

The Naledi3d Factory have, over seven years, evolved a new, innovative approach to learning in Africa, one that is unique globally, and is based on the use of interactive 3D visual (VR) learning content; Content that is not only relevant, but also appropriate to the needs of African learners at all levels, where literacy and language often form major barriers to effective learning and understanding.

Together, World Links, the Naledi3d Factory and the WK Kellogg Foundation share a common understanding of how VR, and visually interactive learning material can help to effectively address the learning needs of African learners and are jointly embarking on this unique training initiative.

The three organisations have worked together previously on the application of visual learning media through the creation of a simulation that teaches basic beekeeping skills to community-land (small-holding) farmers, an intervention that achieved a First Prize at the 2005 Harare Agricultural Show.

For more information contact Dave Lockwood at the Naledi3d Factory on
(012) 844 1010.

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