Camara Education
There are hundreds of millions of children around the world that do not go to school, and of those who do, there are still many millions who do not have access to computers and other basic electronic equipment necessary for a proper, modern education. Camara Education is an international charity and social enterprise that has taken it upon themselves to improve this vast insufficiency. Since being founded in 2005, they have delivered digital literacy to students in East Africa, the Caribbean, and Ireland.
Their Work
Thanks to Camara’s work, we now have an additional 2,200,000 digitally literate children, 37,000 trained teachers, 7,000 learning centers, and 100,000 computers in schools. When we began contributing to their organization in 2015, their goal was to have reached 2 million digitally literate children by the year 2020. Clearly this goal has been surpassed years before then, and it has been inspiring to bear witness to and help them get there. Our ultimate aim is to help them continue to reach beyond their goals by contributing with what we know best.
The Process
For each computer that is donated to Camara, their volunteers go in to erase the hard drives and install a Camara educational package with apps, games, and many other programs, which fills the computer with educational content for students and teachers to make them fully functional and useful in classrooms around the world. The computers are then checked, approved, and finally distributed to a number of disadvantaged schools in Africa, the Caribbean, and Ireland. This is where the tricky part comes in, as shipping goods as sensitive and valuable as computers can lead to a number of issues. Before Camara started working with Nefab to help them in the transportation phase, they stacked their computers and additional electronic devices up on flat pallets and protected them only by wrapping with plastic film. These electronic devices were then shipped across the Atlantic to many different destinations.