Another boost for Mail Force as Experian joins forces with charity website to raise £220,000 for school laptops
- Students are facing the mammoth task of catching up on months of lost learning
- Thousands more children will now have a laptop or tablet to access schoolwork
- Campaign has been given a £221,999 boost to get disadvantaged children online
Among those to already benefit is Ramonjit Parmar, 11, who has had minimal access to the family computer at home because her sister has priority as an A-level student
Mail Force has received another stunning boost of more than £200,000 as the nationwide initiative to deliver laptops to schoolchildren hits top gear.
Experian, the consumer credit reporting company, and charity donation website The Big Give have raised the money together.
It lifts the running total of donations in cash and computer pledges from generous Daily Mail readers, philanthropists and corporations to an astonishing £12.1million.
Experian matched every £1 donated – up to a generous £100,100 – to the Computers for Kids campaign on The Big Give.
The threshold was hit on the final day of the scheme this week thanks to almost 1,300 individual donors.
It means the total raised on the platform has reached £221,999, including more than £21,000 in unmatched donations and gift aid.
The campaign to help disadvantaged children get online has also benefited from a cash boost of £45,700 from global investment bank Jefferies as part of its Doing Good effort.
Mail Force is one of 129 charities focused on ‘advancing diversity and inclusion’ to be chosen by the bank, which gave away more than $8million, about £6million.
As schools reopened in England this week, students were facing the mammoth task of catching up on months of lost learning.
Experian, the consumer credit reporting company, and charity donation website The Big Give have raised the money together
It is a challenge made all the more difficult by what has been dubbed the ‘digital divide’ – the large gap between families with enough devices and sufficient internet access and those without.
Thanks to the Daily Mail’s Computers for Kids campaign, thousands more children will now have a laptop or tablet to access schoolwork in the evenings and at weekends.
The first mass batch of Mail Force laptop deliveries went to schools across the country this month, when 5,000 Chromebooks and other models were shipped to more than 100 towns and villages.
Among those to already benefit is Ramonjit Parmar, 11, who has had minimal access to the family computer at home because her sister has priority as an A-level student.
The year-seven student at Langley Academy, in Slough, Berkshire, said: ‘I cannot wait to start using my new laptop because it has been difficult for me to get a chance to sit down and study.’
Her father Ranjeev Singh, 44, who is training in construction, said: ‘I am so grateful to readers of the Daily Mail for this very important initiative because it makes family life a lot easier. It has been hard to balance the needs of both my daughters and this laptop will help.’
Hundreds more devices are destined to be delivered across the country after schools placed orders for 10,000 Mail Force laptops.
Mail Force has also teamed up with Vodafone to make thousands of SIM cards, which provide enough data for about nine weeks of learning, available to those who are struggling to get online.
HOW TO DONATE TO COMPUTERS FOR KIDS
TO YOU, THE READER: How to send us donations
The Daily Mail has launched a brand new campaign, Computers For Kids, to raise money for Mail Force – a charity which aims to provide much needed school equipment and resources for pupils across the UK learning from home.
With schools closed, we are left with the dilemma of hundreds of thousands of pupils in the UK having no access to a computer in their home.
As part of this campaign, companies are donating their old laptops which, for around £15, can be wiped, professionally refurbished and made safe and fit for home schooling. They can then be delivered to a child or young person who needs one.
In addition, the campaign is looking to support children’s needs in other ways such as funding brand new laptops and tablets, and assisting with data access and connectivity for online learning. Any surplus funds will be used to support of the work of UK schools via other means.
TO MAKE A DONATION ONLINE
Visit mailforcecharity.co.uk/donate and follow the steps to complete your donation.
Please don’t send us your old device.
TO COMPANIES: Could you give your old laptops?
Upgrading office computers is something all companies do from time to time – and there has never been a better time to donate old laptops. If you are a company with 50 laptops or more that you could give, please visit www.computacenter.com/daily-mail to check they are suitable and register your donation. We will arrange for collection by our specialist partners Computacenter. Please note: we cannot accept donated laptops from individuals.
COMPANIES SHOULD GO TO: computacenter.com/daily-mail
TO SCHOOLS: Where to apply for the computers
Schools must apply to the Department for Education, which is managing the demand and prioritising the schools most in need. The Mail Force initiative means more laptops will become available more quickly.
SCHOOLS CAN APPLY HERE: https://get-help-with-tech.education.gov.uk