Tech charity sends out urgent request for support
Our rush to embrace online has left millions isolated. With your help one charity can change that, but it is facing a desperate shortage of resource - something many simply throw away.
Dear reader,
Greetings. Welcome to Thursday’s big read.
We make a big deal out of The Raikes Journal being about community and charities as well as focusing in on the business, education and training sectors.
Which is why we’ve given this edition over to a big read about a simply incredible charity that needs help right now.
It’s an organisation that has been quietly changing the lives of millions of individuals for two decades and is synonymous with supporting schools abroad in Africa. But it also helps thousands in Gloucestershire every year.
Demand for what it does is unprecedented, and while it has the capacity to deliver it simply won’t be able to without our help.
If you have an old laptop, desk top, mouse, keyboard, charger, lead, this charity wants to hear from you - and fast.
Giving any of the above could transform a person’s life for the better.
Everything you need to know is below.
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Andrew Merrell (editor).
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Tech charity sends out urgent request for support
Our rush to embrace online has left millions isolated. With your help one charity can change that, but it is facing a desperate shortage of resource - something many of us simply throw away!
By Andrew Merrell.
“We thought about calling our campaign something like the ‘great Gloucestershire mouse hunt’,” said Geoffrey Newsome, finding something to smile about despite the seriousness of the crisis his organisation faces.
He’s not talking about mice as in the diminutive furry mammal - he means the device that guides the cursor across the computer screens we use to access so much of modern life.
Newsome is chief executive officer of the ITSA Digital Trust, a county charity that gathers computers, laptops, keyboards and mice (something it is always short of), and distributes them to those who need them - changing their lives.
Its output is demand-led and on such a huge scale you would not believe. But demand is threatening to outstrip supply, leaving thousands without vital support.
Known previously as IT School Africa, because it sends thousands of the computers into the African education system, the Cheltenham charity felt the name failed to acknowledge the huge impact it also has in the UK, including Gloucestershire, hence the rebrand.
Where is the demand coming from and why is it important that businesses, organisations and individuals should step forward to help?
The social revolution that saw us embrace all things digital, something that accelerated beyond anyone’s predictions during the Covid-19 pandemic, shows no sign of abating.
Just this month the UK Government was announcing that doctors’ surgeries would be able to allow us to book appointments via the internet - hailed as a major step forward to avoid the 8am lottery that is the rush for appointments.
But if you don’t have a computer, it doesn’t really help. In truth, the great leap forward has isolated millions.
Age Concern estimates that 49 per cent of people aged 75 and over in the UK, and 29 per cent of people aged 65 to 74, are unable to complete the tasks required to set themselves up online.
As a result, an estimated two million in that agegroup in the UK rarely use the internet. And this is the age group most in need of GP surgeries.
“And if you are on a course, at school, applying for benefits, or looking for a job now, you generally need to be able to go online. If you can’t go online, you can’t do any of that,” said Newsome.
“For those trying to find work, not having access to the internet, not being IT literate, has serious consequences.”
The quietly spoken former secondary school teacher and one-time managing director, has been CEO of the Cheltenham charity for two years now.
In that time he’s seen demand for the refurbished computers ITSA is committed to delivering rise exponentially, both in the UK and abroad.
Determined to keep up with that demand, its small team faces a major shortage of IT equipment - despite a contacts book that reads like a who’s who of socially and environmentally conscious Gloucestershire businesses.
“We are launching a campaign right now. We need to get 3,000 computers by May and 10,000 by the end of the year,” said Newsome, adding that the demand comes from both the UK and abroard.
“We have two 20-foot containers booked to go to Africa by the end of May and need 1,350 computers for that shipment.
“In total each will contain something like 3,500 bits of IT equipment.”
He added: “Some of the schools in Africa may be teaching IT, but very often they have no computers at all.
“So, a school can go from having no computer to everyone being able to use one at last.
“We also deliver training too and can help set up IT suites for them. It can be life-changing for those students.”
Great relationships with Gloucestershire companies, including Willans solicitors, Hartpury University and Hartpury College, Barnwood, CyNam, Ecclesiastical, Kohler, Ecotricity, Spirax Sarco and Capita, all keep ITSA busy.
And a Social Value Club for businesses has created a vibrant networking group featuring many of the names mentioned above, helping to open up new networks to reach out to as well.
For any organisation, ITSA will collect IT equipment, dispose of data responsibly to comply with GDPR, and then its engineers will test and refurbish everything they can. All for free. For businesses that donate it makes good CSR sense and good enviromental sense too.
There has also been a rise in the number of commercial firms offering money for a company’s old machines – something ITSA cannot do – and more businesses are now opting to lease IT equipment, meaning they have nothing to donate any more.
Here in Gloucestershire the positive impact of what ITSA does goes almost completely unsung, but it is lifechanging for thousands every year.
Gloucestershire Rural Community Council is just one of the UK organisations ITSA works with and which relies on the charity’s ability to keep delivering computers so it can support some of the most needy in our communities.
Daniel Gale, digital inclusion manager at the Gloucester-based GRCC, estimates its team has helped 4,000 people thanks to ITSA.
GRCC distributes IT equipment and training across the county – to the elderly, to children for school and to individuals who need them to access the jobs market and more.
“It helps us support all sorts of people. There are families out there who do not have any IT equipment. There are (disabled and elderly) people who need to be able to shop online.
“A laptop gives them access to online services for all sorts of things - so they can look for work, keep connected, study, access services, see their GP, have meetings online.
“ITSA is a key bedrock of us being able to help tackle all that and help people help themselves. What they do is vital to making that work,” said Gale.
The Nelson Trust, which supports people across Gloucestershire and beyond affected by substance use and multiple disadvantages, is another that relies on ITSA.
Ian Day, ETE leader for recovery services at The Nelson Trust, which is headquartered in Stroud, said: “There are lot of examples of how our relationship with ITSA has changed lives.
“There was a lady recently who is in the final stages of her recovery programmes who has now been accepted onto one of our future development programmes - which promise her a job interview.
“She has used a laptop from ITSA to help her achieve all that, gain qualifications and move forward.
“This is someone who has struggled with alcohol for years and has not worked for 15 years. She is changing her life, she is winning, and that laptop is enabling her do that.”
Eve Jardine-Young, principal of Cheltenham Ladies College, another supporter of the charity’s work, said: “There has never been a greater need to help bridge the educational and technological gap, which can be so empowering and transformative in supporting the transition into greater economic welfare for new generations.
“I have seen this impact first-hand, and am very supportive of their work.”
During its 20 years ITSA estimates it has helped digitally connect 6.5 million learners, saved 135,000 computers from landfill, trained 1,900 teachers in Africa, helped teach 38,000 UK learners digital skills, installed 40 IT labs in schools and community centres, and created roles for 1,400 volunteers.
It currently needs three thousands computers by the end of May and 10,000 by the end of the year.
Added to that shopping list, it needs 500 hard drives, 500 graphics cables and power leads (as monitors get donated without the cables) and 250 laptop chargers (as they often come without chargers or cables, or damaged).
And it needs to raise an extra £20,000 to pay for the costs associated with refurbishing the equipment to buy replacement parts etc. Each PC costs on average £80 to make operationally ready to send out to Africa or a Gloucestershire recipient.
IT Schools Africa began when a man called Monis Khalifa was horrified to see IT equipment being thrown into a skip in Cheltenham.
He began talking to a local businessman about what could be done and the charity that became IT Schools Africa and now ITSA was born.
Khalifa dedicated 20 years to ITSA. He died at the end of 2024. The businessman he spoke to who helped make it all possible too was Michael Ratcliffe MBE, who today remains chairman of the ITSA Digital Trust. The pair of them are pictured together, above.
You can get in touch with charity click here - ITSA Digital Trust.