Category Archives: sponsors

Computers on their way to Zambia

Category : News , sponsors , zambia

Last Wednesday a good friend took 44 PCs and 60 monitors to Folkestone for shipping to the Department of Education in Siavonga. These were donated by a company which wishes to remain anonymous. We are grateful to Operation Sunshine for facilitating this delivery.

refurbishing a PC

Meanwhile we were busy showing teachers here how to refurbish the PCs by adding hard drives and an operating system.


Solar Installation Training at Siavonga High School

Category : News , solarpower , sponsors , zambia

 

This training was designed to introduce the principles of solar installation to teachers from three remote rural schools where we will be installing solar panels next week. Teachers came from Dibbwi, Manchamvwa Inland and Nashongo primary schools.

 solar system
crimping connectors for solar panels

After some explanation of how solar power works, and how to care for a solar system, it was hands-on to connect the panels in pairs. The teachers will transport the equipment to their schools and Giakonda Solar Schools will oversee installation next week.

We are very grateful to have received funding for these solar installations under the Welsh Government Wales for Africa Grant Scheme  

WElsh Government Wales for Africa Scheme logo


Grant funding for 2019

Category : News , solarpower , sponsors , zambia

We are very pleased to announce that we have received the following grant funding for 2019.

Wales for Africa Grants

Welsh Government’s Wales for Africa Grants Scheme has awarded Giakonda Solar Schools £10,000 to supply solar power to three more schools in the Siavonga District of Zambia. We’ve identified these with the help of the local District Education Board Secretary. We hope to visit in the spring to carry out the project, which also includes the installation of laptops, projectors, and LED lights. At the centre of our solution lies the offline learning resource of RACHEL (Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning). This is delivered to all wireless enabled devices via a Raspberry Pi computer used as a wireless hotspot.

The Waterloo Foundation

We must also thank The Waterloo Foundation who have awarded us £3200 to carry out research in Siavonga District. We want to find out the impact our project is having on pupils, teachers and the wider community served by the schools. We have supplied solar power as the infrastructure for learning resources. Now we need to prove the impact that has had. We’ll publish our findings on our return from Zambia.


SolarPlants pleased to support us

Category : News , sponsors

SolarPlants of Baglan Bay have supported our cause by donating solar panels for four schools and selling us other panels at a reduced price.

Read how they share our award success story here.

 


Monitors for Zambia

Category : News , sponsors , zambia

We are delighted to send a big thank you to three generous organisations for their support to Giakonda Solar Schools in donating, storing and shipping monitors and other computer equipment for us.

palleted monitors

We’ve just picked up six pallets of monitors kindly donated to us for our project in Zambian schools and put them in storage until they can be shipped out next month.

When they arrive in Zambia in a few months time they will be distributed amongst a dozen schools.


Sponsors wanted!

Category : News , sponsors

We have a large number of PCs and laptops ready to be donated to schools in Zambia and those in need in Swansea. Now it’s a matter of sponsors wanted to help us refurbish them with new hard drives.

£50 will provide a PC or laptop hard drive. We will advertise your donation on social media and keep you updated with news from the recipient. Donate here.

hard drive imagelaptop hard drives


Hard drives

Category : News , sponsors

We are extremely grateful for a very generous donation of surplus PCs and laptops (minus their hard drives unfortunately). We intend to refurbish them and pass them on to schools in Zambia and also to disadvantaged families in Swansea.

We will  put in new hard drives and instal a new operating system and LibreOffice software. They will be used in conjunction with RACHEL as a great learning resource.

Are there any kind souls out there who can help us with drives? 120GB would be OK though the bigger, the better. If so contact info@giakonda.org.uk


Solar Panels and Raspberry Pi

Category : News , solarpower , sponsors , zambia

We’re busy checking out kit for next week’s visit to Siavonga, Zambia.

A pallet of eight solar panels donated by SolarPlants has gone out ahead of us. Two of the panels are reportedly damaged during transit, but we are hoping they may still have some functionality.
Director of SolarPlants handing over panelsHT fixing solar panel at Kabila School

Our target over the three week visit is to install power in four schools and provide Raspberry Pi computers loaded with RACHEL. This is an offline e-library containing thousands of articles on agriculture, science, literature and health. Find out more about this brilliant resource here.

In addition we will run training sessions for teachers to increase their confidence in using and maintaining the equipment.


Siavonga visit

We’re delighted to be heading out for Siavonga next week to install the solar panels kindly donated by SolarPlants
We will be working with four rural schools to get them set up and working, supplying teachers and pupils alike with offline learning resources via RACHEL (Rural Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning) on a Raspberry Pi computer.

Raspberry Pi 3

 

 


Synology DiskStations for Siavonga

Category : News , sponsors , zambia

We have long been fans of Synology DiskStation NAS storage stations and, in July 2015, set one up in the offices of Siavonga Nutrition Group.  It meant that all users could save their work centrally and share resources more easily.

We recently met Synology UK at a trade event and discussed our project with them. Imagine our delight when they donated us two ex demo DiskStations. We are in the process of setting them up ready to send to Siavonga High School,and Siavonga Basic School.

Synology Diskstationds414j