Camara Education and Trinity Access appeal to homes and businesses to donate disused laptops for students

Posted on: 14 April 2020

Camara Education Ireland and Trinity Access have together launched a Tech2Students campaign with an appeal to homes and businesses in Dublin to donate disused laptops.

The laptops will mainly be distributed to DEIS school students with no access to technology at home. Tech2Students, supported by ESB, will focus on Leaving Certificate students as a first priority, to help those to continue their learning amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The Tech2Students campaign is an innovative collaboration between Trinity Access and Camara Ireland, both of which are award-winning programmes which have received support from Social Innovation Fund Ireland (SIFI). ESB staff volunteers will also provide logistical support to collect laptops from homes or businesses across Dublin.

Camara Ireland and Trinity volunteer engineers will disinfect all laptops before restoring to factory settings, securely wipe all data from the hard drive, and then load the laptops with a fresh copy of the Windows operating system. ESB will then deliver the refurbished laptops directly to students allowing them to power on with their studies.

Marianne Checkley, CEO of Camara Ireland,  a co-founder of the appeal said:

“We believe no student should be at an educational disadvantage due to the Coronavirus pandemic. We are appealing to homes and businesses to donate any laptops they have which are no longer used. Through our partner, Trinity Access, we are in contact with 20 DEIS schools that have identified students in need. Our long term partner, ESB, has kindly offered to make staff volunteers available to transport the technology, and support the promotion of the campaign on social media and radio. Our overall goal is to get Tech2Students operational across Ireland to assist all those Leaving Cert students who urgently need technology at this crucial time in their education.”

Dr Cliona Hannon, Director of Trinity Access, said:

“Students are doing their best to continue with their education through this difficult time and those without access to a laptop are at a particular disadvantage. We believe students and teachers in our partner schools are willing to take on the challenges of remote teaching and learning but they urgently need the right hardware now. This can either be old devices we can repurpose or contributions to enable us to buy laptops.”

Individuals or businesses looking to donate to the Tech2Students campaign can log on to www.tcd.ie/trinityaccess/tech2students