IT Schools Africa (ITSA)

Qui sommes-nous

IT Schools Africa (ITSA) is a UK-registered charity operating in Africa and the UK with a mission to transform lives through access to e-Learning.
The seed for IT Schools Africa (ITSA) was sown as an old computer was thrown into a skip. Monis Khalifa, ITSA´s IT Manager watched as the computer was dumped and thought to himself, is there not a better way to recycle old computers? He mentioned this to his friend Michael Ratcliffe, and between the two of them, they decided that there definitely was a better way - to send them to African schools!
Subsequently IT Schools Africa was established in 2004; operations started the following year with the renovation of a warehouse in Cheltenham and from there the first used computers were shipped in a container to Africa.

Our work
In the UK, the programme supports the local community - working with prisons, the unemployed and schools - to refurbish computers, clean them of data and prepare them for shipping.
In Africa, the programme delivers IT teaching training and technical support to all recipient schools and deals with the final disposal of computers in an environmentally friendly way. ITSA distributes the computers on a cost-recovery basis; the schools pay a proportion of costs involved in the refurbishment and shipping of the computers. It also means that the computers are used to their full potential, with some schools opting to use the computers for out of school IT classes.

How it works
• When you upgrade your IT equipment, whether it be at home, work, school or university, you can donate your old kit to IT Schools Africa where you will be helping students in Africa gain an education in IT.
• When your donated equipment arrives at our Cheltenham headquarters, the warehouse team will log the equipment and thoroughly erase all the data from the machine. Our IT specialists will upgrade the computer to meet ITSA specifications and run various quality checks to ensure we are sending out reliable equipment in good condition.
• The refurbished computer will then travel to one of our African programmes in either Zambia, Zimbabwe or Malawi. The partner charities will distribute the IT equipment to schools at a low cost. ITSA aim to give another 5-6 years of life to every machine that we send to African schools.
• Inevitably the computers do eventually reach the end of their life span. It is at this point that our partner charities in Africa encourage the schools to send their equipment back to the programme so it can be safely and responsibly disposed at a recycling centre in South Africa.

Activities:
• In Africa, ITSA is committed to putting in place the infrastructure necessary to ensure the computers reach the intended beneficiaries and are used effectively. We work with NGOs in Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
• e-Learning Centres: We have provided 17 complete e-Learning centres to schools in Malawi and Zambia. Typically the labs have 30 - 45 networked computers, laser printer, Internet access, digital projector and teacher´s laptop. Providing enough computers for each student means they can work independently and significantly improves the quality of their education,
• Projects we fund: IT Schools Africa supports numerous international projects with the aim of increasing access to quality education.

Jenny Evans is the Donations & Marketing Coordinator at IT Schools Africa (ITSA).

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.