SCHOOLCHILDREN in Africa will be able to able to develop their IT skills with the help of a housing group which has donated dozens of unwanted pieces of tech.

Thirteen, which provides housing across the region, has joined forces with The Turing Trust to deliver 54 old PCs to Malawi for the benefit of 1,154 students who want to boost their educational opportunities.

The housing group has ensured all the data on the equipment is destroyed to The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment standards before they were handed over to the charity.

In addition to helping the youngsters, the charity monitors the environmental impact of donating the computers rather than them ending up in landfill.

Hassan Bahrani, Thirteen’s networks, infrastructure and mobile service implementation manager, said: “We’re delighted to be working with The Turing Trust.

“We have disposed of our decommissioned IT equipment over the years to companies which provide us with a data destruction certificate, but we don’t really know what happens to the hardware.

“I was introduced to The Turing Trust and they carried out an audit of the equipment we wished to dispose of, and we were delighted that 54 PCs were suitable for reusing.

“There are lots of good reasons to recycling equipment in this way; the opportunities it provides to young people who might not otherwise have access to digital skills and the positive green benefits it has.”

The group plans to continue to work with the charity to enable its old PC’s, laptops, peripherals and phones to be reused.

The charity has so far reused more than 4,200 PCs enabling more than 41,000 students to gain a digital education.

For more details www.turingtrust.co.uk