Giving back to the community

Orion Hotels and Resorts upgrades and maintains computer centre at local school.

Orion Hotels and Resorts, one of the largest independently owned hotel groups in Southern Africa, recently donated 20 computers to the Computer Centre at Laerskool Germiston Primary School.

In 2003, the CEO of Orion Hotels and Resorts, Franz Gmeiner, together with two friends, set up a computer centre at Laerskool Germiston Primary School as part of Orion’s social responsibility programme. Gmeiner, Corrie Roodt and Johan Burger are all past pupils of Laerskool Germiston Primary and they wanted to give something back to the school that had played such an important role in their formative years. “We wanted to contribute to the school that had done so much for us in our early years,” said Gmeiner.

Roodt donated ten new computers, Burger, on behalf of First National Bank, contributed ten second hand computers and the Orion IT technicians built ten computers from existing spare computers. Orion also provided a server, Solar Software Development donated software and Eduqare provided training for the teachers.

The innovative past pupils then assisted with the construction of the centre by utilising a section of the library and erecting dry walling and a door. Orion painted the centre, installed electric wiring to provide power to each computer and installed the cabling to connect the network. Orion also employed shopfitters to build workstations. The computers were finally functional and the excited children were able to proceed with their computer lessons.

Since then, Orion and Gmeiner have continued to regularly maintain and upgrade the facility at the school and the recent donation of 20 computers has enabled the centre to further serve the needs of all Laerskool Germiston Primary learners.

The computer centre has been a great success over the last three years and the learners are eager to attend their computer classes as many do not have access to computers at home.

“We really appreciative the ongoing contributions made by Franz Gmeiner and Orion. Our computer teacher, Mr van Rensburg not only provides computer courses for the children but also a very successful maths programme that is run by the computer centre. The children are very enthusiastic, over 80% of our learners come from disadvantaged communities and they are very eager to become proficient in the use of computers. The additional computers have been a very welcome addition to our centre and we look forward to further success and growth in 2007,” said Mr Bosch, principal of Laerskool Germiston Primary School. "

Orion IT technician, Rui da Silva, regularly visits the school to maintain or upgrade the computer facilities. Orion is currently in the process of setting up Internet access and a domain for e-mail addresses for each learner.

"Orion’s generous contributions reflect the best of the business community's growing support for quality teaching and learning in our schools," said Bosch. "We are extremely grateful to Orion for placing such a high priority on improving the technology capabilities of our learners and educators. Their assistance has enabled us to further enhance our ability to provide the best possible computer education,” added Bosch.