Abertay University is donating its outdated computing equipment to help school children affected by the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
A team of six from the Chernobyl Children’s Life Line charity will set off from Dundee today to deliver the gear to a school in the Stolin region of Belarus whose 1800 pupils have to share one computer.
The Abertay kit, which includes 83 PC system boxes, 52 monitors, three printers and three overhead projectors, is being transported to the region along with clothing, medical supplies and toys.
One of the team, the charity’s north-east Fife chairman Ron Cairns, said that Belarus, where most of its work is focused, received over 70% of the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear explosion in 1986.
He said, “Thousands are born every year with or go on to develop thyroid cancer, bone cancer and leukaemia.Enormous impact”The donation will make an enormous impact on their education and their enjoyment of school within what is an otherwise difficult existence.”
Michael Turpie, Abertay’s head of information services, said the university had previously donated to the charity and was “delighted” to do so again.
He said, “In what can be a throwaway society, it’s important that organisations look at what they might otherwise have recycled and consider whether worthy charities such as this could benefit.
“As a university, we are truly committed to education and it seems more than fitting that we should hand this substantial IT kit over to children who are so much less fortunate than those in our own country, and who will benefit enormously from its use.”
Chernobyl Children’s Life Line brings child victims of the Chernobyl disaster to the UK for four-week breaks each year, including to Dundee, north-east Fife and Perthshire.
The children’s trips to the UK are a key factor in increasing their life expectancy, in many cases by four years.