Life After William & Mary: How W&M's Donated Laptops Get to Ghana
A long 10-hour flight away, various schools in Ghana are using decommissioned William & Mary laptops to teach their students computer literacy, an important skill in today’s day and age. The laptops also help older students prepare for college entrance exams. These laptops, once used by faculty and staff at W&M, surpassed the four-year usage agreement. They were meticulously wiped clean by Information Technology of any previous data, and then sent half-way around the world. How they get there is a story worth hearing.
The First Ghana Laptop Donation
The donations started in 2012 and have been going on for eight years running. At that time, Gloria Driessnack (now Gloria Sclar), then a junior at the university, was a part of the W&M student organization SPAID (Student Partnership for Aid and International Development), under its previous name SPIMA (Student Partnership for Medical Aid), and planning a service trip to Ghana.
Upon hearing from their in-country partner organization, HCDP – Ghana (Humanity and Community Development Projects), that computers were a needed for a school at the site, she reached out to the W&M IT department to ask if they had any available.
Read more about the initial donation of William & Mary laptops in the 2012 news article Going to Ghana.
A lengthy administrative process ensued, coordinated by then Director of Systems & Support Chris Ward, but once the decommissioned laptops were green-lighted for donation, they were on their way to Ghana. The SPIMA students hand-carried the laptops (and chargers) from Williamsburg to the Volta region of Ghana, as the cost of shipping to Ghana is incredibly expensive.
Eight Years of Donations
And the process has repeated itself for eight years. Furthermore, because the donation process had been established, W&M IT has since been able to donate laptops to schools in other parts of the world as well, including Waverly, Virginia; rural Texas; and Ecuador.
In past years, students such as Maya FarrHenderson ’20 have led projects to serve in Ghana with SPAID, and had the opportunity to interact directly with the students who are receiving the laptops.
FarrHenderson said of the experience that “I really enjoyed the opportunity to speak to students in Ghana who were receiving the laptops and hear about their after-graduation plans. These are students who are genuinely eager to learn and have fought for their education. I felt energized to be there and in turn, learn from them.”
Collaboration with UMass Amherst
This year, W&M students were not able to travel to Ghana to deliver the laptops, so Sclar stepped back in to the donation process (now as a W&M alumna). She facilitated a collaboration between the W&M IT department and John Barber, of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst who works with Engineers Without Borders.
Barber has been working with HCDP - Ghana since 2009, when he volunteered in Ghana during his time as an undergraduate at the UMass Amherst. Barber helped HDCP receive 501c3 status in the US and continued to collaborate on different projects over the years. The Engineers Without Borders team from UMass Amherst has also been working with HCDP since 2012 to help improve access to potable water.
Barber drove to Williamsburg to collect the laptops before he flew to Ghana in June. The final destination of the 2019 laptops is the Adaklu Wumenu D.A. Basic and Junior High School. These laptops will be crucial in helping students study Information and Communications Technology, which is now a part of their college entrance examinations.
A Fruitful Partnership
W&M laptops are now in use in several school computer labs in Ghana. The schools put in requests for laptops and HCDP - Ghana visits and assesses their needs. They generally send the computers to the schools with most need. Richard Anku, Projects Director of HDCP Ghana, initiated the program and has collaborated with students and staff to transport the computers all the way from Williamsburg to Ghana. In regards to the laptop exchange program, Anku said "For the 8th consecutive time, our partnership has been very fruitful and [helpful in] sustaining with our Community ICT Project."
These decommissioned William & Mary’s laptops are helping school children in rural Ghana step-up in a world where computers and technology are becoming more and more indispensable. By giving the students access to computers, we are enabling them to pursue a university-level education, and providing lifelong career skills.
