Seeking Laptop Donation for a Good Cause? 17
Johannes asks: "I'm working in a home for mentally heavily disabled children and I'm the computertechnician here. We are in need of a old notebook (486, min 120MB HDD, min. 4 MB Ram, B/W-Screen) to keep all the information of our children. After my request to IBM, Sony, Siemens I always received the same answer: 'Our budget doesn't allow us this year to help you'. Are these companies so poor that they can't not even find a notebook with our needed specifications? Anyway, until today we weren't successful, so I would like to ask all readers from Slashdot: does someone out in the big world have notebook, which he doesn't need anymore? Our home is situated in South Africa near Pretoria and we are fully dependant on donations." The standard answer IBM, Sony and the others provided seems like a dodge to me. Does anyone out there have a laptop to donate for a good cause?
Shipping. (Score:2)
Side note. (Score:2)
eBay (Score:2)
486 DX4 75 Mhz Laptop. 12 Mb RAM, 340 Mb Hard Disk Drive, 3.5" Floppy Drive Suit Student for cheap Wordprocessor Good Condition
36UKP on eBay just now. 9 hours to go. Surely someone reading
Corporations costs go through the roof for every little thing. To release an old laptop, someone has to first find one, make sure it's unused, if it is used order and commission a replacement, blah blah blah. Hence I'm not surprised by the response you got.
Reality check! (Score:1)
I don't care HOW cheap you think such a laptop appears to you on eBay, you are obviously out of touch with what it is like to live and do charity work in Africa.
The South African Rand is almost worthless. What little value it has, is almost completely negated by the country's draconian foreign exchange control regulations. The rand is NOT a hard currency as most of us know it: It can only be exchanged with the permission of the government, and only in tiny amounts, subject to a mountain of regulations and paperwork.
When last I did the research, South Africa's per capita GDP was about $10k or so.
I take my hat off to anyone willing and able to do charity work at all in that environment.
I'm sure that sydb didn't mean his post to be offensive. It's just that we, in the industrialized western world, take so much for granted!
I will try. (Score:1)
I will be in Cape Town in December, so hand delivery is a possibility at least that far. I won't be in Pretoria, 'though.
On Monday, I'll email you directly, whatever the outcome.
Re:I will try. (Score:1)
Re:I will try. (Score:1)
I could not mail you directly, because I cannot get your address from your user profile. I have family in Cape Town. If you are in Capetown in December, gimme a mail and I could arrange for someone to help you send whatever you could find to Pretoria. This would not be a problem at all.
My email is netgrok@yahoo.de
Unfortunately, I am in Europe at the moment so I cannot be of direct assitance.
L
Re:I will try. (Score:1)
I'll email you directly, if I find a laptop before December 5.
I also have family in Cape Town, but nobody I know regularly travels to Pretoria. I live near Denver.
I've also sent my email address to Johannes. So, if someone in the Denver area finds a laptop, but needs me to help transport it, they can get a message to me via Johannes.
Copy of email to Johannes (Score:1)
Hi Johnannes,
Sorry to inform you, but I have tried without success to obtain a laptop contribution from my employer.
Unfortunately, it seems that large corporations are not interested in helping small charities or individuals doing charitable works. If you are not a well-known big-name charity, they just ignore you.
I wish I had better news.
Derek.
You forgot some details (Score:2, Insightful)
You also need to provide details about the charity. In the US I could look up the details to make sure that this wasn't a scam. Sorry to say that, but it's always a possibility, you know. Do you have some sort of evidence that you are a charity? Is there someone who can vouch for you?
Please reply publically. These are questions that a lot of people will be asking themselves, and it may help you to get what you need.
Who said it was a charity? (Score:1)
It's not the Red Cross or some big-name charitable foundation that does most of the everyday good works in Africa. It's individuals and small grass-roots organizations you'll never hear of if you live in America or Europe.
He didn't claim to represent any kind of registered charity. He said what type of work he was doing, and asked for help. Plain and simple.
And what exactly is he asking for: A million bucks? The crown jewels? No. One old, decrepit computer that would otherwise go the the scrap heap. Well, if it's a scam, I'd take that risk.
Now, how about some positive posts, from people who are willing to make an effort to help?
I will ask my employer. They are a big, political, beaurocratic corporation, so I don't hold out much hope.
But at least I'll try. Will you?
Re:Who said it was a charity? (Score:1)
Nice that you're offering to take the risk, but your employer is going to ask harder questions than I did, and then they'll still say no. I have laptops, and would be willing to send one off if I could see that it was really going to what the poster asked for.
You may think I'm being cynical, but I know that the world abounds with scoundrels, and would like to understand how Johannes thinks that the cost of sending a laptop overseas would be any less than just giving him the money. I hope that the person who offered to hand carry it can come through, myself, because I don't hold out much hope for any other methods.
.
Re:Who said it was a charity? (Score:1)
I agree with you that these are the questions corporations will ask, and unfortunately, I agree that corporations will just say NO based upon the answers. I consider that sad, because I also understand Johanness' situation: If he's not a big-name internationally recognised charity, he's hosed when it comes to asking for donations from corporations. And it's the little guys who do most of the good works in the world, which is what makes this really sad.
I work for a large multinational corporation which has historically (but not so much recently) been VERY generous towards charities. But they are so mired in beaurocracy and politics that an "out of band" request for a single low end lap top will probably get nowhere. How sad that big, wasteful organizations like Red Cross and United Way get all the attention. (And look at what Red Cross tried to do recently, mis-using our Sept 11 contributions! As a donor, I was outraged.)
By the way, I am the one who offered to hand carry it to Cape Town, and pay shipping the rest of the way, myself. I live near Denver, in case anybody else manages to scrounge up a Laptop, but not the postage. I leave for Cape Town December 5. Johannes now has my email address, so donors can contact me through him.
He should have asked for a brand new one (Score:2)
Even in South Africa, what are the chances of those companies still having an old 486 laptop lying around somewhere? They could probably give him a new one at less expense to themselves than paying staff to hunt up the parts to cobble together the antique he's asking for and to make sure that it works.
well... (Score:1)
I also have a 386 20mhz Compaq Laptop with a 40meg ESDI drive I will give if you pay shipping.
my email is lstrunk@myrealbox.com