Duplicator

As the pupil population has increased, Kimaluli High School found it was spending an increasing proportion of its budget on obtaining printed copied material for classroom worksheets and also for examination papers. These were obtained from businesses in Mbale or Tororo that provided office services. As well as the cost, the suppliers are around 20 miles away and so there was a delay involved in obtaining these materials. The school identified real benefits in being able to produce duplicated materials on site.

In 2015, KRDP provided funds for the purchase of  a Risoprinter. Riso printing is a digital version of the printing method some of us, if we old enough, will remember from using Gestetner duplicators. It starts with a printed page, typically from a computer printer, and then prepares the equivalent of a Gestetner stencil within the machine. High quality copies can then be produced quickly, in large quantities. Costs are significantly lower than for conventional photocopying. Machines of this type are in use in many developing countries. Although normally electrically-powered, they  can be manually operated in the event of power outages which, sadly, are very common in Uganda. The High School supports Butta Primary School by providing worksheets and examination papers and is looking to provide a printing service to other schools in the area

Although economical for larger print runs, a Riso printer is still an expensive way to produce individual copies. Our latest project is therefore to provide a simple ink-jet machine that can scan and print documents.