Camara will have a stand at Africa Day 2013 and will demonstrate the impact of reused computers, in order to highlight the importance of using education technology to enhance Africa’s economic future. Africa Day 2013 takes place  in Farmleigh House, Phoenix Park  on Sunday May 26th, from 11am to 5pm. The event, sponsored by Irish Aid and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,  celebrates the 50th anniversary of African Unity. It will reflect on the progress and transformation that has taken place across the continent and highlight the issues that continue to hinder its development, such as security, hunger and inequality.

Since its foundation, Camara has helped more than 500,000 children become digitally literate.  Most of them come from disadvantaged communities, serviced by Camara’s seven African hubs in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Uganda, Lesotho and Tanzania. Much has been achieved in the past seven years, but there is still more to be done. Through collaboration with Irish Aid and participation in Africa Day 2013, Camara will work to raise awareness of the impact of a single computer donation. Each reused Camara computer is installed in a low income school where it can provide digital literacy skills to 21 students. Instead of needlessly throwing away IT equipment people can donate to Camara to give students in disadvantaged communities the chance at a better education and consequently better life prospects.

Individuals and families are invited to visit Camara’s stand on Sunday to chat with volunteers, participate in activities and learn more about the important work Camara is doing for education. Why not try out Camara’s educational package of numeracy and literacy games on one of the refurbished laptops, which will soon be sent to an African school. Children can try our quiz about Africa and volunteers will be on hand to explain what Camara does and answer your questions.

Details of where you can drop off your unwanted computers can be found here

More information about Africa Day 2013 can be found at africaday.ie

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Camara Ethiopia Director Shakeel Padamsey and Director of UNESCO-IICBA Dr. Arnaldo Nhavoto.

Camara Education Ethiopia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UNESCO International Institute for Capacity Building in Africa (IICBA) to collaborate on teacher training and development programmes.

Camara and UNESCO-IICBA will produce tool-kits to identify the level of teacher competence and develop a roadmap of teacher-training courses and materials that will ultimately enable all teachers to maximise the use of ICT in their classrooms to improve the quality of education delivery.

This innovative project will take place in Teacher Training Colleges and Universities in Ethiopia, a country that has seen a huge growth in the number of primary and secondary schools over recent years, but where the quality of education is still lacking (Ethiopia: 2010 MDGs Report, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia).

The Government of Ethiopia is making giant strides to improve student and teacher access to quality enhancement tools and training. Camara Education Ethiopia, as a key partner of the Ministry of Education, signed a five year agreement in 2011 to supply ICT equipment, educational content, technical support and teacher training to schools and teacher training institutions across Ethiopia; an estimated 17,500 computers to nearly 1,000 institutions and 3,000 trained teachers.

“Comprehensive teacher training is key to the success of ICT projects but the high turn-over rate of teachers causes a lot of problems when considering the long-term impact of such interventions” says Shakeel Padamsey, Country Director of Camara Ethiopia. “The UNESCO-IICBA – Camara project will ensure that all teachers leaving Higher Education Institutions are highly trained in using ICT in all aspects of education, which will have a huge impact on the overall quality of education delivery for even the most remote and rural schools.”

UNESCO-IICBA is a world leader in capacity building in Africa, with a specialisation in teacher development using ICT. They have developed a number of frameworks around teacher development in the area of ICT, including the ICT-enhanced Teacher Standards for Africa (ICTeTSA) and ICT-enhanced Teacher Development (ICTeTD) model, both produced by Dr Temechegn Engida – the lead expert for this project for UNESCO-IICBA.

Camara Education specialised in the delivery of E-Learning Centres to schools in under-served areas, and operates in 7 countries in Africa, 2 in the Caribbean, and supports schools in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

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Camara are delighted to receive such a prestigious award. John Fitzsimons, CEO of Camara Education and Mark Fox, Camara’s Business Development Manager attended the event and are pictured here being presented the award by Grace O’Rourke Veitch, Country Manager of Citrix. 

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Launched last month, Project 1000 will provide one thousand early childhood and primary institutions across the island with Information Communications Technologies (ICTs) over the course of three years. Approximately US$375,000 will be invested in the project. As part of the application process, schools are required to state the number of computers, tablets, notebooks and equipment that they have sourced (through their past student associations, fundraising events and the private sector) with a request to match it. The Digicel Foundation will then match the request up to two computers, tablets or notebooks. North Street Primary School submitted their application shortly after the April 24 launch, and less than two weeks later, the school now has three new computers.

“We all know that we are in a new technology age and everybody needs to be tech savy,” noted Winifred Lawrence, Principal at North Street Primary. “Our children will certainly benefit from having these new computers and they are very much looking forward to it,” she said.

Project 1000 is in keeping with the Foundation’s aim to meet the United Nation’s Millennium development goal of achieving 100% literacy by 2015. The ICT equipment will be used to provide additional learning resources to enhance teaching and learning in the classroom, specifically the teaching of phonics and reading. Computers are all preloaded with educational software, and teachers are trained by the Camara Foundation to use these resources in the classroom effectively. During the past two years, both the Digicel and Camara Foundations have donated over 750 computers islandwide.

“For the past nine years the Digicel Foundation has been working tirelessly to improve literacy and numeracy at the primary school level,” noted Samantha Chantrelle, Executive Director of the Digicel Foundation.

“So far the Foundation has been able to contribute to roughly 373 schools islandwide. We want to touch as many schools as we can and Project 1000 is one way in which we will be able to do this. North Street Primary is the first school to receive computers through Project 1000. I commend the school’s authorities for taking the initiative to apply so quickly, and I encourage other schools to do the same,” said Chantrelle.

The computers though funded by the Digicel Foundation, are sourced and installed by the Camara Jamaica Foundation. A three year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the two Foundations during the launch of Project 1000 on April 24.

“The Camara Foundation is very excited to be a part of the Project 1000 initiative. This revolutionary project, spearheaded by the Digicel Foundation, will see over 2,000 computers put into 1,000 schools, over 1,000 teachers to be provided with ICT training and each of these 1000 schools to be provided with monitoring and technical support. North Street Primary is the first school to receive computers since the Project’s launch in April. Camara Foundation will be the watchdog to ensure that these schools use these computers optimally and that it produces the expected results of improving education in Jamaica.”

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An Irishman’s Diary: How old Irish computers are starting new lives abroad

by Frank McNally, fmcnally@irishtimes.com

About 100,000 computers are decommissioned in Ireland every year. And Camara (a West African word meaning teacher) has its eight-year-old roots in one mass disposal. Above, recycled Irish computers being used at a school in Lusaka, Zambia

If you’re getting rid of an old computer, these days, you could probably earn a few quid for it from a recycler. The more valuable parts will then be stripped out. As – you hope – will be the toxic material. The remaining plastic and metal will probably be baled into cubes, for reuse God knows where.

But for the loss of a fiver, or so, you could instead give your computer to an organisation called Camara. Which will also recycle it, except in more holistic fashion. Remaining intact, the PC will gain a new life in more ways than one, this time used by schoolchildren in Africa, or the Caribbean, or maybe Ireland. If you’re any way sentimental about the old machine, you can even find out where it ends up.

About 100,000 computers are decommissioned in Ireland every year. And Camara (a West African word meaning “teacher”) has its eight-year-old roots in one mass disposal. The year was 2005 and the founder, banker-turned-educationalist Cormac Lynch, had just visited Ethiopia, where he heard from schools that computers were the thing they needed most.

Soon, back in Dublin, he saw a skip-load of condemned PCs, probably bound for landfill. It was, as James Joyce might have said, an epiphany. Camara, an education charity designed to turn one country’s waste into another’s opportunity, was born.

Like many things in Ireland, it started in a pub. Not the idea, the operation. The early Camara occupied a room at the back of Pravda on Dublin’s Ormond Quay, courtesy of the late Hugh O’Regan, a developer with a conscience. It quickly outgrew that space, however. And today, although still on the Liffey, the headquarters has moved upriver to an industrial estate at Chapelizod.

As I found out when dropping by there earlier this week, this is where the old computers go now, first to be tested, then wiped to a standard that defies US military detection methods, then refitted with an open-source operating system. About 40 per cent of PCs don’t make the grade. The rest embark on second careers, usually overseas.

Camara is a social enterprise rather than a charity. That’s to say, it operates on business lines but with a defined good, not profit, as its aim. Thus the parent organisation “sells” refurbished computers to its overseas hubs, which then sell them to schools, along with training packages.

I visited one such hub in Lusaka last month, where Camara’s Zambia CEO Isabelle Fay spoke of the tight “margins” she had to work with, just as any businesswoman would. Aside from the efficiency this encourages, there is an old-fashioned ethos behind the model. Things given away are not always respected. The Camara approach requires schools to buy into the system in more ways than one.

But of course, the PCs are heavily subsidised, by those who donate them, by cash gifts, and by volunteerism. The day I was in Chapelizod, staff were outnumbered by volunteers, ranging from students on work experience, to a retired nun who used to teach physics in Africa.

The nun was apt because, despite all the hardware, teaching is the core of what Camara does. In Lusaka and elsewhere, it won’t give computers to schools unless they also sign up to training.

Fay cites examples of places where new computers are locked away, unused, because the teachers are clueless but can’t admit this in front of pupils. The Camara idea is to train as many staff as possible, not just one IT specialist whose expertise can later be poached, leaving the school helpless.

There’s an equally strict approach to facilities. Two of a computer’s deadliest enemies – heat and dust – are especially prevalent in Africa. So school computer labs have to meet stringent criteria before Camara will part with any product.

In Lusaka, I also accompanied technical director Farid Ali on a trouble-shooting mission to a new lab in the department of education headquarters. There was no shortage of trouble, about which he lectured the fitters in robust terms. But as he said, it’s all part of the education, “A good laboratory is good training”.

When he started out in 2005, Cormac Lynch intended to send only a single container-load to Ethiopia. In the years since, Camara has shipped 40,000 PCs, in the process training 11,000 teachers. The result is an estimated 500,000 digitally literate children throughout Africa and the Caribbean.

But you don’t have to go that far to find educational disadvantage. In recent times, the refrain Lynch heard in Ethiopia has also been heard closer to home. As a consequence, Camara has of late dispatched almost 1,000 recycled computers to Irish schools. That number is expected to grow too.

For more information about donating equipment to Camara, click here.

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Camara Quaterly Newsletter April 2013

Welcome to Camara’s second newsletter for 2013.

Click above to read more

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Project 1000 is in keeping with the Foundation’s aim to meet the United Nation’s Millennium development goal of achieving 100% literacy by 2015.

“Since 2004 the Digicel Foundation has contributed significantly to education, investing over JM$1 billion towards improving infrastructure, hurricane repairs, infrastructure for sporting development and improvement in literacy at the primary school level,” stated Samantha Chantrelle, Executive Director of the Digicel Foundation.  “With this level of investment, we have impacted approximately 373 schools across the island. The Digicel Foundation would like to increase this number from 373 to 1000; this is how we came up with Project 1000.”

Over the course of three years, over US$375,000 will be invested in Project 1000 to provide a wide variety of ICTs to 1000 schools in Jamaica. As part of the application process, schools will be required to state the amount of computers, tablets, notebooks and equipment that they have sourced (through their past student associations, fundraising events and the private sector) with a request to match it. The Digicel Foundation will then match the amount requested up to two computers, tablets or notebooks/applicable ICTs.

During the press briefing, a three year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Digicel Foundation and the Camara Jamaica Foundation as much of the ICTs for Project 1000 will be provided by Camara. This dynamic partnership encourages the exploration of technology to access information and knowledge.  The equipment provided will be used to provide additional learning resources to enhance teaching and learning in the classroom, specifically the teaching of phonics and reading. Through a joint effort, both foundations have donated over 750 computers islandwide during the past two years. The computers were all preloaded with educational software, and teachers were also trained by Camara to effectively use these resources in the classroom.

“Project 1000 is the most impacting, far-reaching, and unprecedented private educational initiative to be implemented in Jamaica to date,” remarked CEO of the Camara Jamaica Foundation Karl Gaynor. “The key objectives of this project will be to provide computers to 1,000 schools (this amounts to about 80% of schools across Jamaica). Approximately 2,000 computers will be installed and approximately 1,000 teachers will be trained. It is a most ambitious effort, however, it is these bold, unconventional and innovative initiatives that characterises the Digicel and Camara Foundations and will assist in providing the impetus for growth and development in education and technology.”

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Lord Puttnam with students from Mercy Secondary School, Inchicore, Left, Sophie and Right, Holly.

Lord David Puttnam, Digital Champion of Ireland, visited the Camara Education workshop in Chapelizod to congratulate the social enterprise on providing 40,000 computers to disadvantaged schools in Ireland, Africa and the Caribbean. The container Lord Puttnam sent off, currently on its way to Tanzania, will add to the 500,000 children whose education Camara has enhanced since its inception seven years ago. By refurbishing used computers that would otherwise be recycled or thrown away and pairing them with crucial teacher training, Camara delivers digital literacy skills, giving children from disadvantaged communities a route out of poverty.

“We are delighted to celebrate Camara’s 40,000th computer dispatched in the company of such a distinguished guest,” said John Fitzsimons, CEO of Camara Education. “Camara is a community of people who believe that poverty is wrong in the 21st century, that education is the key to alleviating it and that technology has the power to radically transform education. Pooling our resources together, we have been able to make a difference in the lives of half a million children. These children would otherwise not have access to the technology necessary to develop digital literacy, an essential skill to not only attaining employment, but also creating it.”

Students from Mercy Secondary School in Inchicore, who have benefitted directly from Camara computers, training and educational software, were at the workshop to give Puttnam a demonstration on the effects of ICT in education. Mercy is one example of a school that has prospered thanks to the introduction of technology in the classroom and the promotion of digital literacy.

“Camara has provided us with supportive training with students and teachers,” said Mercy principal Treasa Lee. “We have to make sure the teacher skills are keeping up with the students’ skills because they’re way ahead of us in things in IT. We’ve seen that in the last five or six years we’ve been working with Camara. They’ve helped us and we’re very appreciative of that.”

Lord Puttnam, a proponent of education reform and member of the board of Promethean, an education technology firm, has won ten Academy Awards, 26 BAFTAs and a Palm D’Or for film production. During his visit to the Camara workshop, he expressed appreciation for the work Camara does to improve education through the use of technology.

“Camara hits a whole lot of targets,” said Puttnam. “Number one, the fact that they’re using old, disused equipment and giving it a new life for people in other countries, and indeed here in Ireland. Real credit has to go to the head teacher at Mercy for having the confidence to say, ‘We can’t do it on our own. You know what? I’m good, my school is good, but we need help.’ The attitude in Ireland tends to be, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Well, the truth is, the system, to an extent, is broke, and it needs fixing.”

Camara Ireland (a branch of Camara Education) is part of the answer to this problem. Through the provision of low cost, high quality refurbished computers, teacher training and educational training, they provide low income schools in Ireland the opportunity to enhance their students’ education at an affordable price.

“Average is over,” said Puttnam, emphasising the importance of developing digital literacy skills. “For this generation, the young people we’re here with today, there is no average. They’ve got to be better than average in order even to get a decent job. And if they can be much better than average, they’re going to get great jobs. That is the real challenge for Ireland: It is no longer of any use at all just aiming to be average.”

Camara takes in computers from individuals and businesses alike. Every computer donated to Camara is wiped seven times in accordance with US Department of Defence standard 5220.22-M before being refurbished and loaded with educational software. When combined with training, technical support, and end-of-life recycling facilitated by Camara, these computers have the potential to provide thousands of people in marginalised communities the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty they find themselves in.

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Camara has launched a campaign to get one of these wristbands to Nelson Mandela. The wristbands have been sent to individuals who support Camara’s mission to enhance education through digital literacy. Each person has been asked to tweet a photo of themselves wearing the wristband, then pass it on to someone else. The goal is to get a wristband to Nelson Mandela in support of his own message and to highlight our plans to launch a new skills development programme in South Africa.

The wristbands were designed specially for Camara and have come from Kenya, made by a woman named Beatrice and her team of five workers, all part of the Kambras tribe. The group can make up to 15 wristbands in a day, each adopting a specialised task such as writing or kneading. The tribe is well-known around the world for its skill in arts and crafts, particularly for carvings of animals like elephants and giraffes.

Camara’s name comes from a West African dialect and means “one who teaches with experience.” Through this campaign, we hope to share the Kambras’ beautiful work and promote Camara’s message about the power of education.

Along the way we would like to capture photos from the many people who will help take the wristband on its journey to Nelson Mandela. So keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook pages to follow the wristbands’ journeys.

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Camara volunteers loading the Haiti container at the Camara workshop.

Camara Education this week shipped its first container of computers to Haiti. The computers are part of a project funded by the Digicel Foundation and will be used in eight centres run by We Advance, a women’s rights grassroots movement that focuses on capacity building on the island. Haiti becomes the tenth country in which the social enterprise works to bring digital literacy to disadvantaged communities through the provision of refurbished computers, educational software, and training. Camara volunteers have developed a version of the operating system, CamaraBuntu, in French specifically for Haiti.

To ensure the computers achieve their maximum potential in enriching Haitian women’s education, Camara’s Ailish O’Reilly will manage the project in Haiti for three months with the support of the Caribbean Service Centre Manager Craig Robertson. This project will potentially sow the seeds for development of a fully operational Camara hub in Haiti in the future.

“Haiti has had its fair share of misfortune in recent years,” said Robertson. “This project has the opportunity to benefit so many. It is anticipated that nearly 1,000 women will pass through these centres on a daily basis. Their thirst for knowledge and learning is incredible and they cannot wait for us to arrive on site, as they see digital literacy as the only way to move the country forward for the next generation.”

Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with 80 percent of its ten million residents living below the poverty line. Since the 2010 earthquake that killed 220,000 people, Haitians have struggled to rebuild the already impoverished nation. Camara aims to empower these people through education to break the cycle of poverty many find themselves in.

Since its inception in 2005, Camara has delivered over 40,000 computers to disadvantaged schools in Africa, Jamaica and Ireland.

The computers heading off to Haiti  were donated by some of Ireland’s leading companies including KPMG, Diageo and ESB. With up to 500,000 computers discarded in Ireland every year, half of which are still in perfect working order, Camara urge other companies to partner with them and make reuse their priority too.

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