This article is from page 37 of the 2009-07-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 37 JPG
TWO north Clare natives are this week beginning a month-long pro- gramme to teach computer skills to poor children in Africa. Anne Marie Gray from Lisdoonvarna and Mick Quinn from Doolin departed for Dublin last week to give a four week intensive course in Ethiopia.
The pair are part of an 83 strong party of Irish volunteers who will be teaching in seven African countries throughout the month of July. They will be joined on the trip by fel- low Clare native Mary Woods from Newmarket-on-Fergus who is travel-
ling to Tanzania.
The trip is being organised by the Camera Group, which is an Irish charity promoting sustainable devel- opment in Africa. Camera refurbish thousands of old computers each year and ship them for re-use in a number of African countries.
The volunteers, who come from a range of backgrounds, including IT, teachers and students, will be teach- ing basic to advanced computer skills to teachers in schools in Kenya, Ethi- opa, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Le- sotho and Zambia.
“This 1s so important to provide training in computer skills for the
teachers of the schools who have Ca- mara’s refurbished computers,” said Cormac Lynch, CEO of Camara. “Our teachers will spend a month giving courses from basic computer skills to advanced networking. Each computer can be of major benefit to 200 students, but only if there is good transfer of teaching knowledge to the teachers in the first place.” Camara is an Irish-based registered charity, based in the Digital Hub, which equips schools in Africa with refurbished computers, educational software and IT training. Camara recently celebrated sending out its 10,000 computer to a school in Tan-
zania.
Camara takes in computers from businesses that would be sent for recycling otherwise, securely wipes the hard drive and tracks, cleans and upgrades the computers so that they will run an operating system reliably and have a long second lease of life in Africa. Camara’s computers come from large and medium-sized com- panies including PWC, KBC Bank, ESB and the Department of Finance.
For detail about the the project and how to become a volunteers or do- nate unused computers contact con- tact Leonora Lowe on 085 7057764 and leonora@camara.ie.