Cameras and photography

When I return to Ukenzagapia I am planning to bring a digital camera for each of my field assistants and spend a few days teaching them the basics of how to use their cameras and how to take good photos. One of them used to have a film camera so he's got some experience with photography and one has a simple camera phone. I think it will benefit them as individuals, the other scientists they work with, and my research if they know how to take good photographs and have the equipment to do so.

There are several considerations involved in getting cameras for them.

1. Durability. If it breaks, they aren't going to bring it somewhere to get it repaired. If they can do it themselves, great. If not, they might as well not have a camera.
2. Batteries. I'm leaning towards one that uses AAs, even though I don't prefer that myself. If they use AAs, I can also give them some rechargables and hopefully a solar charger. The AAs can be used for other things if needed. One assistant doesn't have electricity at home. Giving them a camera that eats alkaline batteries will not help them because batteries are expensive.
3. Screen size. Bigger is better. It would be wonderful to get them newer cameras with larger screens so they can more easily assess the quality of their photographs and share them with someone else without downloading them.
4. Memory card size. They need as much memory as I can get them because neither one has a computer and they also have very limited computer access. They're primarily going to be looking at photos on the camera. I'll probably need to print photos for them occasionally.
5. Quality. I don't mean megapixels. 4 megapixels would be more than enough. I just want it to take good pictures under low light conditions with at least one macro setting and some optical zoom.

My original plan was to try to find used cameras, but now I'm leaning more towards buying each of them a new/refurbished but inexpensive camera if it meets the above considerations. Then they could have the same camera, which would help them teach each other to use the different features.

Do any of my readers have a suggestion for a camera that meets most or all of these criteria? An older digital camera model that you loved, perhaps?

I'd also like to give them each a book about displaying (more than explaining) basic concepts of good composition and techniques in photography. A lot of text will be useless to them, but illustrations priceless. Does anyone have any recommendations? It can be tiny, like 12 pages or something. Perhaps I could even print out some pages from the internet. Ideally I'd just like to avoid reinventing the wheel and create my own photography teaching materials.