Winchmore Hill Friend asks for IT
'The original focus was on refugees and people who are homeless, but during Covid this has extended to people living in isolation, especially the elderly.'
A Quaker councillor from Winchmore Hill Meeting is working with a social enterprise to drum up old but still usable laptops to cover the digital divide exposed by Covid-19.
Dinah Barry told the Friend that she was looking for donations to support the company SocialBox.Biz, founded by Peter Paduh, an unaccompanied child refugee who came to the UK from the Balkans.
‘SocialBox.Biz is a Community Interest Company that collects unwanted tech equipment, repairs and updates it, and gives it to people who need it to stay in touch with those they care about,’ she said. ‘The original focus was on refugees and people who are homeless, but during Covid this has extended to people living in isolation, especially the elderly.’
Dinah Barry was asked to make contact with Quaker organisations thar may have unneeded devices to donate. According to Peter Paduh, the Quaker-managed Breckenbrough School in North Yorkshire has responded to requests after a colleague contacted 1,000 schools from The Good Schools Guide. The school replied: ‘As a Quaker-managed school we always look to recycle and reuse items as much as we can so your project certainly calls out to us.’
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