Aiding Underprivileged Students with Associated Architects

Leroy Jeffrey has spent over 5 years working to help underprivileged school children in his hometown of St Thomas in Jamaica, by refurbishing laptops and donating them to schools and families.

“For me, education is a right, not a privilege, and so I am eager to do all I can to help aid learning in underprivileged environments. Providing adequate learning materials for children from poorer backgrounds will help them to study more effectively and achieve better results.”

(Left to Right: Mez Chadry (CPW), Beth Astington (Associated Architects), LeRoy Jeffrey (CPW)

With education increasingly becoming digital (a process only expedited by the COVID-19 pandemic), there are more and more children each year that are being left behind due to material deprivation in the form of not having the required resources to study and learn effectively.

CPW have been assisting Leroy for the last few years in donating our unused laptops for him to refurbish and donate. Laptops that would otherwise be disposed of are given to LeRoy by our IT department which Leroy will then spend time restoring.  

Speaking about Leroy’s work, Mez Chadry, Head of Bids, said: “When we [CPW] became aware of Leroy’s work in Jamaica, we wanted to help with this fantastic initiative. Therefore, for the past few years CPW have donated laptops to Leroy to be refurbished and distributed to schools in St Thomas. We think it is a great way to help bridge the gap between privileged and underprivileged students.”

As a company passionate about sustainability, donating rather than disposing of our unneeded technology has the added benefit of reducing our waste as a business.

Upon hearing about Leroy’s work, Associated Architects got in touch and kindly offered Leroy 10 iMac’s that had become available throughout their business.

Beth Astington, Bid Manager and Social Impact Lead at Associated Architects, said of the donation: “At Associated Architects we are always getting involved with exciting social value initiatives both nationally and internationally, and so when we heard about Leroy and his work with schools in Jamaica, we were eager to do what we could to support CPW on the venture.”

Last month Leroy went to Associated Architect’s headquarters in Birmingham to collect the iMac’s (pictured) and is now restoring them ready to send over to the recipients in Jamaica.