Image source: Digital Poverty Alliance
The Royal Borough Kensington and Chelsea has teamed up with the Digital Poverty Alliance (DPA) in a scheme to collect old technology that can be redistributed to underprivileged families in the local community.
It comes in response to the council’s estimate that over 12,000 residents in Kensington and Chelsea are digitally excluded, representing 8% of the community.
The scheme calls on local residents, workers and businesses with old technology such as laptops and mobile phones to donate them at hubs including libraries and community spaces.
The DPA will then refurbish them and distribute them to families to provide secondary school children with devices for online learning and support older people with phones and tablets. It will also give out free SIM cards from Vodafone’s everyone.connected scheme alongside the devices for those who don’t have connectivity at home.
Scheme target
The aim of the scheme is to collect over 100 devices for redistribution. Once that number of devices has been donated, the DPA and Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council will open applications for families to request a device.
Shaun Condon of the digital inclusion team at Kensington and Chelsea said: “This will impact the lives of many in the local community and go towards bridging the digital divide, ensuring everyone has access to the digital world. We encourage everyone to consider donating any unused devices to support these great causes."
