Eyegaze computer for Cherry Garden School

Our son, Sam, goes to a special needs primary school in London called Cherry Garden School. It is a brilliant school and he loves it.

Sam is a bright, beautiful boy who enjoys reading, word games and trampolining. He is physically disabled and so can't talk and finds it very tricky to use his hands. This makes playing and communicating very difficult but at school he is able to independently play games using an eyegaze computer - games like splat the clown, or matching pairs. Once calibrated to his eyes, the computer tracks where he is looking. We hope that as Sam builds his skills he will be able to use the computer to communicate with us and learn at school.

Cherry Garden school has it's own eyegaze computer which Sam has been using twice a week for the last year. It is an expensive, large piece of kit so is kept in a room upstairs and various children in the school use it. The technology is developing all the time and it's now possible to get an eye-tracker device (myGaze) which can fix to a standard laptop and can therefore be used in the classrooms with minimal disruption.

I am running a 10km race in August 2014. I hate running! But I am aiming to raise enough money to buy a myGaze device for Cherry Garden school so that Sam and his friends at school can more easily use an eyegaze computer in their classrooms. The link to the myGaze is here: http://www.inclusive.co.uk/mygaze-p7061

You can read more about our lives with Sam here: www.storieswithsam.com

And here's a link to Sam's school: http://www.cherrygardenschool.co.uk (there are more photos of him if you look at Red Class)

P.S. I left it too late to organise a fundraising page linked to the school (it's now summer holidays) so this page will pay the money to me and I will pass it on to the school (I PROMISE).

P.P.S. In case I wasn't clear, I really don't enjoy running and I am not very good at it.