Charity's joy over recycled video holders
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A creative Brora woman has come up with a novel way of recycling unwanted video and cassette tape holders.
Wendy Sutherland has turned them into pencil-cases, which are being snapped up by a charity working to change the lives of young people in Africa.
It all started when Wendy’s parents, retired Free Church of Scotland minister Sandy Sutherland and his wife Jessie, had a clear-out on moving house recently.
The couple were loath to dump tens of old videos and cassette tape holders in landfill but were stumped as what to do with them.
Mr Sutherland said: “Wendy suggested that the video holders would make great pencil cases and the cassette holders could be inserted to hold chalks”.
The idea was put into action after Poppy Watson, the daughter of a family friend, contacted the Amuka Foundation to find out if they could use the rebranded“VHS School Study Sets”.
Poppy (14) was among a group of Scouts from the Highlands and Islands who spent three weeks in Kenya last summer working on a variety of projects in slum areas with the Amuka Foundation and Kenya Scout Association.
The Foundation, a registered charity, is involved with educating and upskilling young people in Kenya in the hope of improving their health and wellbeing and providing them with a better future.
On her return from Africa, Poppy gave a talk to East Sutherland Rotary Club and described how she had visited classrooms in the Nairobi slums where teachers were so short of resources that they had to break pencils into four pieces to ensure all pupils were able to write.
Mr Sutherland said: “Amuka was delighted with Wendy’s VHS idea! Hardly surprising really when it is commonplace for one school book to be shared among 60 children.”
The Sutherlands set to immediately and have made up 40 VHS School Study Sets.
Each set is crammed full with a chalk board, six chalks, a duster, black and white paper, eight crayons, 12 colour pencils (felt-pens dry out in the heat), two lead pencils, an eraser, sharpener, paper ruler, small toy and sheet of stickers.
The upcycled holders are due to be picked up in October and transported to Kenya.
Anyone interested in making or donating to a VHS School Study Set can contact Brora Village Hub on 01408 622312 for further details.
