Burnley company donates to classroom charity in Myanmar

Holker IT, based on the Network 65 Business Park, made the kind gestures to The Tekkatho Foundation, a charity close to the heart of team member, Fergal Murphy.

The laptops will be used as part of their ‘Ready to Learn’ project in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

Fergal said: “The Tekkatho Foundation was co-founded by my younger brother Paul who passed away earlier this year.

"His philosophy was education was the most important thing you could give a young person.

“He developed an eLibrary which could work in areas where there was no access to the internet. He travelled to Myanmar and deployed them.

"I am very proud of what he did, and I try to help the charity whenever I can.”

Celia Russell, trustee at the Tekkatho Foundation, said: “The Tekkatho Foundation builds and implements learning hubs at schools, colleges and refugee camps in Myanmar.

"At the heart of each hub is a self-contained, off-grid digital library called MyLibrary.

“This is how we plan to use the laptops that you have donated.

"We will take them to Myanmar and aim to allocate them to the Ready to Learn learning centre in Cikha in Chin State.”

MyLibrary is a hard-wearing capsule containing a terabyte of educational content, a tiny server and router which can generate its own local area network and so operate completely offline without the need for internet connection or even mains electricity.

This means they can set up learning centres in places hundreds of miles from the nearest internet connection or phone signal.

Along with the MyLibraries, the charity provides laptops and tablets so teachers can create an instant virtual classroom.

The Tekkatho Foundation added: “Our work is far from done, and a long line of institutions right across Myanmar have asked for our help.

“The young people at these colleges and universities lack access to those resources that will help them open their minds to the power they have to transform their country.”