Derry teacher and upcycling crew to reformat donated tablets/ laptops for children’s remote learning

Derryware Donations is a joint initiative by local IT Specialist and Teacher Eoghan Barr and the New2You Centre at Pennyburn Recycling Centre.

It aims to rebuild the devices with the necessary software to be used for remote learning through Google Classroom.

Businesses and individuals can bring their spare devices to the Furniture Donation Point at the New 2 You Centre between 10am and midday from Monday to Friday.

Mayor Brian Tierney, welcomed the scheme which he hopes will help alleviate the pressures around home learning for some families.

“I would like to congratulate Eoghan Bar for this innovative and timely scheme and encourage everyone to dig out any devices they no longer use and leave them to the New2You Centre in the coming days,” he said.

“As we saw last Spring, home schooling puts enormous pressures on families and parents and it can be particularly difficult if a household does not have a suitable computer or tablet or siblings are sharing a device.

“A device you no longer use could be priceless to other local families, many of whom are unable to buy new hardware due to the financial pressures caused by the pandemic.”

People donating hardware are asked to put the devices, leads and chargers in a sealed bag and items should be 10 years old or less.

They will be PAT tested by the team at New2You before Eoghan will clean the hard drive and add Neverware CloudReadyOS Home Edition software so they are ready to be used for Google Classroom.

Training sessions and resources will also be provided to families so they can use the systems with confidence.

Families and community organisations can register their request for a computer at www.derrywaredonations.org where full details of the scheme are available.