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Research Matters

The Human Touch: Using Technology to Deliver Education to Disadvantaged Communities

 
 

Camara Education is a volunteer organisation dedicated to using technology to deliver education more effectively to disadvantaged communities in Africa, Jamaica and Ireland. The charity has just sent out its 25,000th computer. Deirdre Lee, a research associate at DERI, is the Camara NUI Galway Society coordinator. Along with many other local volunteers, she gives her time to ensure the successful collection and redistribution of donated computers to e-Learning Centres in Africa, Jamaica and Ireland. I sat down with Deirdre recently to hear more about Camara work and the reasons she believes so strongly in their work.

Being involved in Camara has been a great learning experience, from working on teams, coordinating events, managing the hub and collaborating with people. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the day to day running of Camara Galway, but it’s important to take a moment to realise the impact that Camara has to students in Africa, not only providing computers, but providing educational tools.

Camara Education operates as a social enterprise in two distinct business lines: ’Education Delivery’ and ’Computer Reuse’. The connection between these two, seemingly disparate activities is TECHNOLOGY. We take in used computers from Irish companies and individuals, wipe their hard drives of data, refurbish and load them with educational software before setting them up as e-Learning Centres in schools in Africa, Jamaica and Ireland. We train teachers to use these computers as tools to improve the delivery of education to their students and produce computer training and educational multimedia materials for use by teachers and children. We work in six African countries – Zambia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, Lesotho, and Uganda and have set up local Education Hubs that act as partners in delivering the Camara educational model directly to schools. Camara’s European Centre is in Chapelizod, Dublin and our African Service Centre is in Mombasa, Kenya.

In 2007 and 2008 I travelled to Zambia and Ethiopia respectively with the Summer Volunteer Programme, where we worked with local teachers in how to use computers as tools to improve the delivery of education to their students. These were amazing experiences (why I returned the second year) that really brought home for me the impact of the work that Camara does. We worked directly in schools, but also in the local Camara Education Hubs, community centres, training colleges, etc.; wherever was most suitable to reaching and training a large amount of teachers. The teachers had varying levels of technical expertise and English, but all were enthusiastic and eager to take advantage of this opportunity, which led to a relaxed and fun learning environment for us all.

When I moved to Galway in 2008, Camara Education already had hubs in Dublin, Belfast and Cork. Galway is a large city with a lot of industry and public organisations, so we decided to set up a Galway hub to facilitate local computer donations. While the other regional hubs are standalone entities, we thought that setting up a university society would be a sustainable approach for Galway. With the support of NUI Galway, GMIT, and the DERI Outreach Programme, the Camara NUI Galway Society launched in February 2010. On the first Wednesday of every month from 10am-6pm, we hold a public drop-off for computer donations. We also organise fundraising and volunteering events to raise the awareness of Camara locally. The drop-off centre at NUI Galway has been a huge success, with more than 300 PCs, 250 monitors, and 20 laptops donated from local individuals, businesses, organisations and the university since its foundation.

Readers can help Camara Galway either by donating computer equipment or becoming a member of the society. We accept computers from private individuals on the first Wednesday of every month from 10am-6pm and from NUI Galway departments (contact the Buildings Office). If you are a business or organisation, we will collect, wipe all data to military standards, issue asset and serial numbers for computers with your recycling certificate and all at an affordable price. Our current clients include Abbott Ireland, PricewaterhouseCoopers, AOL and VHI Healthcare.

By joining the Camara NUI Galway Society, you have the chance to volunteer at university events and drop-offs, meet lots of new people from different disciplines, visit Ireland on our weekends away, and contribute to this beneficial charity. Undergraduates, postgraduates and staff are all welcome.


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Camara NUI Galway Society,

18 Distillery Rd.,

National University of Ireland, Galway



camarasocs.nuigalway.ie 

http://www.camara.ie/

+353 91 495336

+353 87 4139367


Author: Deirdre Lee, DERI

 

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