" The first ever practical science lessons at the school took place in September. The boxes arrived in June and the school then spent some time over the summer preparing three rooms to act as labs.
- School in Freetown, Sierra Leone
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" The first ever practical science lessons at the school took place in September. The boxes arrived in June and the school then spent some time over the summer preparing three rooms to act as labs. - School in Freetown, Sierra Leone |
2024/25 Annual Report
Demand for apparatus has increased, but donations from British schools have declined.
In some ways, 2024/25 was LabAid's most successful year since it was started more than thirty years ago by the late Alan Welch, MBE.
As a result of the increased distribution, our stock has reduced at a time when equipment donations seem to be declining. It is hardly surprising that schools are not replacing equipment so often, given the economic situation.
Between July 2024 and June 2025, we supplied 27 schools/colleges in 8 countries: Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone,The Gambia, Uganda and Zimbabwe, sending out 313 boxes of equipment compared to 206 boxes in 2023/24, which in itself had been a 50% improvement on the year before.
Volunteers
This improvement was largely the result of newly-recruited volunteers which enabled us both to pack more quickly and to repair and sort our stock better. One volunteer who returned 252 working microscopes to our store in the whole of 2024 by the end of June 2025 had already returned 251, with the result that for the first time our stock of unchecked microscopes reached zero, although not for very long because more soon arrived via The Entertainer.
We rely on a few former science teachers/technicians to select suitable items to send out and decide what to buy if necessary. Such volunteers are in short supply. Advancing years are having an effect on our trustees, so new volunteers to become trustees are needed now.
Financial situation
Although essentially a re-cycling charity, LabAid does need cash for expenses to complete sets of equipment, for expendables such as batteries, or other costs such as insurance and the website. We need funds to purchase those items of equipment we are rarely given, for example burettes. This year we will also have to pay for the disposal of hazardous waste in the form of a large number of unsuitable mercury thermometers.
LabAid is grateful to the Amersham Free Church for financial donations and allowing us to store our stocks of equipment in their Sycamore Hall. However, they are concerned about the increasing costs of maintaining this dilapidated building. Accommodation is available but at a price which means we would have to become a fund-raising charity.
The Royal Society of Chemistry also continue to support us. We also had a useful donation from a charity associated with the NATO base at Northwood.
If you would like to make a donation or fundraise for us, please make initial contact by email.
Donations of equipment We accept donations of used scientific equipment, mainly from schools in the UK, and sort, check and pack it for sending to schools and similar establishments in developing countries. Mostly these gifts arise when a UK school is closing, moving site or refurbishing its laboratories although we have accepted some items from universities doing the same or from suppliers closing warehouses etc.
Thanks also to The Entertainer chain of toy shops (www.thetoyshop.com) which transported several pallet-loads of boxes of apparatus from their shops to their warehouse in Amersham.
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