A charity is harnessing social media site Twitter to encourage people to donate towards a new school.

The We Care Foundation, a charity set up by a group of Brent parents, needs to raise millions of pounds to open a school for children with autism, dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia.

In a bid to boost fundraising the charity has launched #GiveATenner.

For every £10 donation businesses give, the We Care Foundation will tweet ten of its followers with a link to the donor’s website and twitter account.

They will also ask those ten people to retweet the post.

The charity hopes that its tweets will reach hundreds of people and will act as an incentive to donate.

Toby Chambers, of the We Care Foundation, said: “If all Brent businesses get behind such a simple fundraising idea as #GiveATenner, we could raise thousands of pounds for a good cause while also helping businesses.”

The charity wants to transform the former Barham Park Library building into a school called Eden Manor.

The school would open in September 2013 with the capacity for 40 students.

It would eventually employ 30 full-time staff members.

The parents who set up the We Care Foundation believe that the school is necessary as they argue that Brent currently struggles to provide for all of its pupils with special educational needs.

Mr Chambers, whose son is autistic, said: “While there is no guarantee we will secure the building, we hope this could be a happy ending for at least one of Brent’s libraries.

“This school is needed as currently a number of pupils have to be transferred from Woodfield School to Alperton Community School after Year 9, as there are simply not enough places at Woodfield for all pupils currently admitted to year 7.

“For any child, transferring to another school midway through secondary education is a challenge and can be detrimental to their learning.

“But for a child with autism, the disruption to learning and the inability to easily develop social friendships in moving schools can have a profound negative impact on their future academic achievements.”

The social entrepreneur added: “The community desperately needs more schools and our proposal for Eden Manor at Barham Park does not even require the high cost of building a new school.

“Furthermore, Brent Council spent £300,000 in 2010 refurbishing part of Barham Park prior to the library being closed.

“Surely in these times of austerity, we all need to be thinking about how best to use a local community resource, particularly when at least part of the building at Barham Park has had substantial money spent by Brent Council and that money ultimately comes from Brent council tax payers.”

The building in question was run as Barham Park Library until it was closed by the council last October.

The Friends of Barham Park Library are also keen to get their hands on the building as they want to reopen it as a community library.