First contact with a computer
Mouse and keyboard usage, the vocabulary of computing, and saving and finding your own files. No prior experience assumed, no one made to feel behind.
Endless OS · offline learning content
In partnership with the At Risk Children Foundation · Haiti
More than half of Haiti’s students graduate high school without ever touching a computer.
The Knowledge Bank Foundation is changing that one lab at a time. With the At Risk Children Foundation in Port-au-Prince, we are building a 40-computer teaching lab — hardware, solar power, internet, curriculum, and trained local instructors — for students who have never had access to any of it.
Gifts are made directly to the At Risk Children Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3), which receives the funds and issues your receipt.
52
Students supported today, grades 9–13
1,200
Students the completed lab will reach
3 / 40
Computers installed so far
100%
Free to every student, always
Why we exist
The gap is not talent. It is access.
In Haiti, more than 50% of children finish high school — state or private — without ever having seen or touched a computer in a classroom. In many regions the average is about one computer per school, and where one exists it is usually used for administration, not teaching.
Meanwhile the National Education Ministry has released a revamped high school curriculum that requires full integration of information and communication technology. Every high school will eventually have to migrate to it.
That is the squeeze: students are being held to a standard they have no means to meet. Not for lack of ability — for lack of a machine, a room, and someone to teach on it. Those three things are purchasable. That is what your gift buys.
“By investing in the education and development of these impoverished children, we not only prevent them from being marginalized and becoming victims of exploitation, but also free them to succeed, break the chain of poverty, and change the future for their families, their children and beyond.”
At Risk Children Foundation — Save the Kids’ Computer Lab ProjectWhat gets taught
A three-tier curriculum, built to run offline.
Instruction is staged so a student who has never used a mouse and a student ready to write code can both be served in the same lab — with tools chosen to work where connectivity is unreliable.
The software employers expect
Microsoft Word, Excel including formulas, PowerPoint and email — plus web browsing, internet research and typing technique. The practical literacy a job application assumes.
Kolibri offline platform · Microsoft Office · Google Apps
Coding and STEM
Coding modules, web navigation and specialised STEM resources for students ready to go further — including vocational training for youth aged 16–25 entering the job market.
Coding clubs · 100-day code challenges
Local educators receive weekly training to integrate the lab into standard instruction, and local staff are taught to repair and troubleshoot the hardware — so the lab keeps running after we leave. Evening and weekend sessions open it to the wider community.
Partnership
We do not do this alone.
This project is run with the At Risk Children Foundation (ARCF), based in Port-au-Prince–Custine, Haiti, which supports orphaned and vulnerable children through school. ARCF already carries an annual school budget of $47,500 covering tuition, textbooks, uniforms and footwear for its students.
What that budget cannot stretch to is technology. Sending their 52 high-schoolers to an outside computer training school would cost a further $25,000 a year — money that does not exist. Building the lab where the children already are costs less and lasts longer.
ARCF co-founders: Kristine Lafleur and Marlene Mathurin. Project partner in-country: Trees for Life Haiti.
Project at a glance
- Executing organization ARCF
- Location Port-au-Prince, Haiti
- Start date 3 Sept 2026
- Beneficiaries 1,200 students
- Direct students today 52
- Lab size 40 computers
The ask
Three computers are already teaching. Thirty-seven are missing.
A local donor gave ARCF three desktops. Their IT assistant built a working lab around them, and a handful of students are now learning on it and using it for homework and research. It works. It is simply far too small.
Completing it means 37 more machines, networking and internet for all 40, workstations and furniture, a smartboard, and a 3,000-watt solar system so the lab runs where the electrical grid does not.
Fund the lab
$0
of $66,000 for the year
- 37 desktops @ $550 $20,350
- Rent & running costs $5,500 / mo
- Twelve months $66,000
Each desktop: 24″ 1080p monitor, Core i3, 4GB RAM, 500GB drive, gigabit ethernet, Office suite and anti-virus — specified for durability against sand, salt and humidity.
Ways to give
Your gift buys something specific.
We are small enough that every contribution maps to a real object a real student sits down at. These are the actual project costs, not round numbers.
Where your payment goes: these buttons take you to the At Risk Children Foundation’s secure donation page. ARCF is a registered 501(c)(3); they receive your gift, issue your receipt, and run the program on the ground in Haiti.
$550
One complete workstation
A full desktop to project specification — monitor, machine, software and network card. One more seat in the lab, permanently.
$55/month
Keep the doors open
Running the program costs $5,500 a month — rent on the building that houses our students, power, connectivity and teaching. One hundred people at $55 covers it. This is the most useful gift we receive.
$20,350
Complete the lab
All 37 remaining workstations in one gift — taking the lab from three machines to forty and opening it to 1,200 students. Sponsors are recognised at the school.
Prefer to give another way? We accept checks, donor-advised fund grants, employer matching, and in-kind hardware donations — working machines are genuinely useful to us. Email rob@theknowledgebankfoundation.org and a human will reply.
How your gift is handled
The Knowledge Bank Foundation is not yet a registered 501(c)(3). Donations to this program are made directly to the At Risk Children Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3) — ARCF receives the funds and issues your receipt. Please consult your tax advisor about deductibility.
Free to students, always
No student has ever paid us for a seat, and none ever will. Tuition is not our model — that is the entire point.
Ask us anything
We will send the full ARCF project proposal, a breakdown of where the monthly $5,500 goes, or an honest answer about what is not working yet. Write to rob@theknowledgebankfoundation.org.