To answer that I would have to go back a couple of years to January 2007, in my role as Network Manager for Holy Trinity Primary School here in Kent I was replacing 10 of our oldest computers and I had to find a way to dispose of the them. As we are proud of our green status I couldn’t just throw them in the bin and was looking at having to pay to recycle them, like all schools we don’t have pot loads of money and anything that costs us means we have less for new equipment.
A chance conversation with our computer supplier saw me walk away with the phone number for Computers 4 Africa, and thoughts of being able to kill two birds with one stone, not only could I dispose of those old computers but at the same time I could actually do some good!
Over the next few weeks we got the computers to their Maidstone base and during March our Green Club were invited to Computers 4 Africa headquarters to wave good bye as the next container was packed ready for shipment. Our children had a wonderful day, even helping to load ‘our’ computers into the container and Jan laid on a lovely party to say thanks.
I had the pleasure of meeting both Aseri Katanga and George Cook in June when they came to our school and Aseri captivated the children with his story of how and why Computers 4 Africa came about. It was at that time that George suggested that it might be a good idea if we started to establish relations between our school and Computers 4 Africa as hopefully this would lead to links with children in Tanzania, which I thought was a wonderful idea and I said if there was anything I could do I’d be happy to help.
It was in the staffroom over a cup of tea that George suggested I might be able to help if I was prepared to go to Tanzania and share my knowledge with computer technicians there since they were beginning to have networking equipment donated and he felt it would be useful since they’d got computers in the schools and the next step would be to network them. Of course, I would jump at the chance to go and as the Chair of Governors was with us I asked if it was possible, his whole hearted support gave both George and I the opportunity to work it out.
Our school continued to have contact with Computers 4 Africa over the next couple of years and, now and again, I was asked if I was still prepared to go to Tanzania and as always I said “Oh! Yes”. At the beginning of this year I again found myself with redundant kit on my hands in the shape of 50 odd monitors, networking switches and ancillaries and of course I offered them to Computers 4 Africa who gratefully accepted them and while it was happening the subject of that trip came up. However this time Jan was talking about flights and Aseri offering accommodation at his home, which told me I would be on my way soon.
I am now sorting out vaccinations and anything else that I need to do and looking forward to an adventure that I’m sure will be hard work and also very rewarding, but if I can contribute in even a small way then it will be well worth while.
If you are interested in more details as to how the first lot of computers from our school got to Tanzania have a look at the story on our school web site, there’s a link below!
http://www.holytrinity-gravesend.kent.sch.uk/comp4africa.htm
