Everton in the Community Partner Causeway Technologies has donated £25,000 to the Club’s official charity to help tackle digital poverty amongst school children living in Liverpool City Region.
Digital poverty has been on the rise during the coronavirus pandemic as a large percentage of pupils from low-income families have been restricted from participating in home schooling because of a lack of access to core digital infrastructure such as a laptop or an internet connection.
And once construction software provider Causeway Technologies became aware of this widening education gap with many children missing out on valuable learning opportunities, they were keen to play their part in helping local disadvantaged children overcome this hurdle.
Everton in the Community works with more than 60 partner schools across Merseyside and during the pandemic, has increased its outreach work to provide further support to families who have been identified as a top priority and may be struggling due to loss of income.
And thanks to Causeway Technologies generous donation, charity staff have identified pupils who are still at a disadvantage with home schooling through either sharing one laptop amongst siblings and having to juggle usage times or simply having no access at all to IT equipment.
Online retailers The Very Group kindly enabled Everton in the Community to purchase 149 laptops at reduced cost and donated a further 25 laptops to the cause whilst Causeway’s donation has also meant that the charity have been able to secure many WiFi data dongles that will be distributed to pupils to ensure that they can get connected and access live online classes.
John McDonald, Education and Employability Senior Programme Manager at Everton in the Community, said:
“We are very appreciative to Causeway for their ongoing support of our charity’s work and this generous donation will go a long way to help bridge the widening gap within education inequality.
“We have worked tirelessly with teachers and pupils during school closures to ensure that no child is left behind and access to technology is instrumental in the fight against this – this donation will not only help to bridge this gap but will also put a big smile on the faces of children, parents and schools. Thank you from everyone at Everton in the Community.”
Phil Brown, Chief Executive and Chairman of Causeway Technologies, added:
“We are delighted to help and are very grateful to Everton in the Community for providing the services on the ground to the most disadvantaged groups.
“It has been alarming to hear about the increase in digital poverty during the last 12 months and we were keen to play our part to do what we could to help alleviate this in some way and ease the stresses and worries of pupils, parents and schools. We knew that Everton in the Community would be able to help put this in action and this is another great example of our two organisations being more powerful together.”
Everton in the Community partnered with Causeway in December 2020, with the UK’s largest provider of software solutions for construction having donated £200,000 towards the build of the charity’s purpose-built mental health facility, The People’s Place. Causeway has also chosen the Club’s charitable arm as its Charity of the Year for 2021 and, as part of the partnership, has appointed former Blues and England midfielder Trevor Steven as their mental health ambassador which will see him work on a construction-specific campaign for Causeway staff and customers as well as driving fundraising challenges across the organisation.
