Most people know the seaside resort of Malindi Kenya for its beautiful beaches. Just a few miles away from the luxury hotels people live in mud hut villages without electricity or running water. A Jersey team has been working since 2009 to establish a school to give children a chance to escape subsistence agriculture. In just three years, St Clement Education Centre has grown to seven classes and 234 children. Classrooms have been funded by Jersey donations and contributions from Jersey Overseas Aid Commission.
Now the Education Centre needs your old laptops so please do not put a screwdriver through the HDD. Make it a low-level multi-pass reformat and donate it to the project after reading the following from the project lead, Canon David Shaw:
"I have just returned from a week supervising the projects . The current plan is to turn a classroom at St Clement Malindi into a computer room and for the Jersey Explorer Scouts to build a computer lab at Isaac Nyondo School in Rabai which is the school chosen to link with Le Rocquier school – visited by two teachers last month. The picture shows children at St Clement Malindi wearing JCG Prep shirts and Le Rocquier ties. Six laptops were taken out to the two schools and they are very keen to use them to learn computing and to build links with Jersey school children.
July 2014 will see a team of over 30 Jersey Explorer Scouts and leaders spending two weeks building a kitchen where porridge and meals for the poorest children will be prepared.
With fibre optic cable now laid to Mombasa the ability to use computers will be vital to gain jobs in the modern economy. The school now has electricity and access to the internet is available via dongles, and the Scouts are aiming to carry out at least 30 laptops loaded with educational software and set up a computer room. They have someone willing to load up OpenOffice, which is what has been provided with the ones we left. As there is electricity in both schools so the state of batteries doesn't matter.
Even the slowest oldest laptops will make a huge difference."
Please act soon.
If you can help please contact the Rector of St Clement Canon David Shaw on tel: 851992, email: [email protected] or deliver to the Rectory, La Rue du Presbytere.
