AMI and Camara Education agree a three-year outsourcing agreement

AMI, Ireland’s leading secure IT recycling company, and Camara Education, the international educational organisation dedicated to using technology to empower disadvantaged students, today announce a new commercial agreement, which will see Camara Education outsource its Dublin-based refurbishment operations to AMI. The deal will increase the number of IT assets processed by AMI annually by more than 20,000.

Under the agreement, AMI will refurbish second-hand IT hardware for disadvantaged schoolchildren in Ireland and Africa. Equipment that is unsuitable for educational use will either be recycled or re-sold by AMI. The company aims to generate €3 million from those sales over a three-year period, which will be used to support Camara Education’s activities.

Organisations including ESB, Dell, and Symantec donate retired computers and hardware to Camara Education for its charitable initiatives. To date, the charity has installed 106,500 computers in schools and youth centres, and trained more than 47,000 teachers. By 2020, Camara Education is aiming to have reached 5 million students. The agreement will ensure an increased supply of both computers, projected to be in excess of 40,000 over the coming three years, and funding for the organisation’s education projects in schools and youth centres. In 2018 alone, these projects saw over half-a-million students starting to use computers in their school – some for the very first time.

To ensure donor hardware is processed using the strictest GDPR-compliant data security standards, Camara Education has teamed up with AMI. The charity will continue to engage directly with donors, while the collection, processing, and refurbishment or reselling of IT equipment will be taken over by AMI. The hardware that Camara Education’s donors give to the organisation will be collected by security-vetted, trained and uniformed AMI collection crews and transported in unmarked, GPS-tracked vehicles.

AMI operates to the highest international IT disposal standards and is the only Irish company to be certified to the ADISA IT Disposal Industry Standard.

Commenting on the announcement, Philip McMichael, CEO, AMI, said: “We are delighted to partner with Camara Education and support the great work they do in providing computers to disadvantaged children across Ireland and Africa. Computer skills are so important for all children, no matter where they are or what their background is, as they can open doors of opportunity. I, personally, am looking forward to a trip to Ethiopia later this year to see the work Camara Education does first-hand.

“As the market leader in the secure disposal and reuse of IT equipment, data destruction, and WEEE recycling, AMI is the ideal partner for Camara Education to provide a GDPR-compliant service to their donors. This is a mutually beneficial deal that will support AMI’s ongoing growth plans for the business, enabling us to grow our operation in Dublin and process 25% more IT Assets equipment in the next 12 months.

“Camara Education can now offer a full range of secure IT disposal solutions to its donors, including certified onsite hard drive and media shredding.”

Jean Cox-Kearns, CEO Camara Education, said: “Computers improve education, and education is the best way to improve the lives of students. I was delighted to meet with one of them, Haregewoin, in Addis Ababa last September who has just started studying Computer Science at university in Ethiopia. It is an amazing achievement from when we first met her as a young student with no access to computers in 2014. With this exciting partnership, many more students like Haregewoin will see the same life-changing opportunities.

“The partnership will enable us to increase the number of computers we can get to classrooms in Africa and Ireland. This is so important for schools and youth centres, as they can offer not just a better education, but provide life-changing opportunities and skills to the millions of students for whom the advantages of technology are often out of reach.”

Donors will continue to liaise directly with Camara Education whilst AMI will now handle the collecting, processing, preparation, and shipping of computers for Camara Education to utilise in education projects.

If your organisation has computers that you would like to donate, please contact Camara Education on +353 (0)1 65 22 665 or info@camara.org.