Niamh Carwood from Siliconrepublic.com with Mark Fox from Camara Education. Siliconrepublic.com recently donated old monitors, PCs and Macs to the social enterprise
Camara Education, the Dublin-headquartered social enterprise that refurbishes computers for disadvantaged schools in Ireland, East Africa and the Caribbean, is calling on organisations to get cracking and donate any unwanted monitors they may have lying around, so it can dispatch up to 2,000 computers to help students keep apace with the digital era.
That’s because Camara, which has its main refurbishing site in Chapelizod in Dublin 20, is short of monitors to go with the computers its staff and volunteers have refurbished.
Camara’s work has been hampered by a decline in the donation of mice, power leads and keyboards in recent months from companies, organisations and individuals alike, but it is most concerned about what it is terming a “stark shortage” of flat-screen computer monitors.
Last week, Siliconrepublic.com headed out to Chapelizod to donate old PCs, Macs and monitors to the charity as part of our recent move to our new office in The Digital Hub in Dublin City.
In return for the donation, Mark Fox, who is computer re-use manager at Camara, presented our very own Niamh Carwood with a Camara T-shirt. That’s because, for the month of August, Camara has been offering every organisation that donates 10 working monitors a free Camara T-shirt as a token of its appreciation.
Calling on companies and organisations to donate monitors now!
Camara dispatches refurbished computers to one of its many hubs in Ireland, East Africa and the Caribbean so that such IT equipment can then be forwarded to schools in these locations that need such equipment to help kids improve their digital literacy.
Fox said the shortage of monitors being donated to Camara is because many people are hanging onto their existing monitor when updating their computer.
Camara said sourcing monitors for these 2,000 refurbished computers will mean that another 40,000 students from disadvantaged areas will become “digitally literate”.
Without monitors, it may be necessary to recycle computers that otherwise could be reused in education, Fox said.
Businesses and individuals alike can learn more about donating monitors to Camara online.
