Founder Cormac Lynch Website camara.org | Method Volunteering, Aid | |
Area served Sub-Saharan Africa, Jamaica, Haiti, Ireland Slogan Transforming Education. Mission To use technology to improve education and livelihood skills in disadvantaged communities around the world. | ||
Camara is a social enterprise that sends refurbished computers and provides digital literacy training to schools and other educational institutions in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Uganda, Lesotho, Tanzania, Jamaica, Haiti and Ireland. It was set up in 2005 in Dublin, Ireland and has since grown with offices in the United Kingdom and the United States. Since 2005, Camara has raised and generated €20m, trained 24,000 teachers across 4,000 eLearning Centres, and installed 80,000 computers, enabling 1,800,000 children to become digitally literate and attain better grades.
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Process
Camara takes in computers from individuals and businesses alike. Every computer donated to Camara is wiped seven times using DBAN in accordance with US Department of Defence standard 5220.22-M before being refurbished and loaded with a new operating system and educational software. The new operating system is generally Linux known as Camara Ubuntu 10.4 for Africa and Windows 7 for Ireland and the Caribbean. Computers are boxed and shipped to one of 10 Camara’s Education Hubs in East Africa, Caribbean and Ireland. The Education Hub then sells the computer to ‘approved’ schools at a heavily subsidised price. To gain approval, the school must have a well ventilated and secure computer room with appropriate surge protection. The Camara package to schools consists of:
An important Camara's single donor is PwC, the company has donated over 2,500 computers. Noel Carroll, Director of IT for PwC said "As part of our Corporate Responsibility programme at PwC, we are delighted to continue our support of Camara’s work in improving education through technology in Ireland and Africa. It is very satisfying to know that the computers will be reused to benefit the education of children in disadvantaged schools."
Camara Education Limited is registered with the Revenue Commissioners (CHY 16922) in Ireland, Camara Learning Limited is registered with the Charities Commission (1135540) in England and Camara Education Inc is registered as a 501(c)3 Organisation in the US.