Wiltshire organisation calls for support in tackling digital poverty
Wiltshire Digital Drive is asking for us to sponsor a laptop to provide essential digital access.
A Wiltshire organisation is aiming to help change the lives of hundreds of children and young people in 2025 by giving them access to technology - but needs our support to make it possible.
Wiltshire Digital Drive (WDD) is asking us to sponsor a laptop this Christmas and give the Gift of Tech to reduce the number of people digitally excluded in the county.
WDD Chief Executive, Natalie Luckham told us around 19 million people in the UK suffer from some form of digital exclusion.
"That might be Wi-Fi connectivity issues. It could be skills or actually having access to a device," she said.
Natalie added that more and more of our day-to-day activities are online or require digital access - but it's cutting off those who are stretched furthest.
"So many of us take having a laptop and a phone, not multiple ones for granted, but actually there are huge communities that can't afford a laptop.
"Perhaps they're a child in a multi sibling family, perhaps it's an individual who isn't in a highly paid job or a family that can't afford to buy the latest laptop or smartphone and we're trying to do more and more online these days. And for many, it's not even possible."
The Gift of Tech appeal aims to raise £25,000, which allow them to add to the 3,500 devices they've been able to refurbish and hand out since being created in 2020.
"We get a lot of laptops and computers that are handed to us from members of the public. Some of them are quite old. Some of them need a lot of work doing," Natalie told us.
She added: "We just don't have the funds to allow us to make use of every single bit of kit, every single time and the more expertise we can have in the team and the more support we have, we can upgrade operating systems, we can put antivirus software on, we can provide packaging and mice and all the peripherals that people need."
The non-profit organisation aims to refurbish and redistribute another 550 laptops in 2025.
By supporting their appeal, Natalie says we are investing in somebody's future.
"What I love about what we do here is that that one laptop, it may stay with person A for 12 months, 18 months, but when they no longer need it, it comes back to us and we refurbish it again.
"It goes out to somebody else. So whilst we say you're sponsoring a we, that's why we're saying you're sponsoring a laptop, but you're actually changing, potentially changing a lot of people's lives."
One device can transform a life
With many of us taking it for granted that digital access is at our fingertips, we might not realise the impact a digital device can have the life of a person without it.
One woman, who had been registered as partially sighted at the age of 23, received a laptop from WDD after being referred through through the Wiltshire Centre for Independent Living.
She said: "Two years down the line and after having time to adjust to a different way of living, I am determined to make the most of life but was struggling due to a shortage of money as I had just left university and was trying to find employment.
"My Community Connector saw how I was applying for jobs using only my smart phone as I didn’t have a laptop. I was pleasantly surprised when she told me that she would be picking up a laptop from Wiltshire Digital Drive the following week.
"Not even a month after this, I now have a job and am able to communicate with friends and family so much easier than before. I can’t thank Wiltshire Digital Drive enough for, what to me, is a lifeline and the means to move mountains.”