Camara Ireland seeks used laptop donations for Irish schools

19 Nov 2013

Students from Scoil Mhuire, Shankill, make use of Camara Ireland's refurbished laptops

Camara Ireland is appealing to individuals and organisations to donate their used laptops to the charity, so it can help meet a surge in demand for educational technology packages in Irish schools.

Ciaran Cannon TD, Ireland’s Minister for Training and Skills and a supporter of Camara Ireland, is also urging people to consider donating their end-of-life laptops for reuse in the education of Irish students.

“The package (Camara provides) makes an important impact in our schools, helping to provide young people with vital access to technology,” Cannon said.

Once Camara Ireland receives the laptops, it will wipe them to U.S. Department of Defense standards. Then the laptops will be loaded with educational software and supplied to schools at 25pc of the price of a new laptop, with comprehensive training included.

Camara Ireland has also supplied more than 900 computers to schools this year, training nearly 400 educators in the process.

Killavullen N.S. in Cork is one such school to have received hardware from Camara Ireland.

“The laptops have landed!” said principal Damien Fallon, who added the laptops are “perfect”.

“You really are changing the world, click by click,” Fallon said of the social enterprise.

For information on how to donate computers to Camara, please go to its website or or call (01) 652 2673.

Tina Costanza was a journalist and sub-editor at Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com