e-Learning Foundation Launches Corporate Partnership Scheme
Howard Lake | 11 December 2008 | News
National Charity Calls On Companies To Help Erase Digital Divide
December 11 2008: The e-Learning Foundation, the only national charity dedicated to ensuring that every child in the UK has access to technology for their studies, has set up a Corporate Partnership Scheme to help ensure that disadvantaged children don’t end up the wrong side of the digital divide.
Companies joining the scheme will be required to make a minimum £10,000 donation per annum over a two year period to help the most disadvantaged children in the UK get a better start in life by providing them with home access to technology for their studies.
“The digital divide in the UK is a social problem, but also a key business problem,” explained Valerie Thompson, Chief Executive of the e-Learning Foundation. “The future of UK business will be on a digital platform and digital exclusion has a major impact on the skills pool and employability. By supporting our scheme, companies are investing in a strong IT literate workforce for the 21st century”.
“We must work together to erase the digital divide in this country to ensure that technology is utilised for universal social and economic
empowerment, as opposed to creating an even greater chasm of exclusion,” added Thompson.
“There is undoubtedly a direct link between companies building up CSR programmes and heightening their corporate reputation and increasing employee motivation,” added Neil White, Fundraising Director, e-Learning Foundation. “Through our scheme, companies can share our mission to bring social justice to millions of young people in both rural and urban areas who, through no fault of their own, are caught in the digital divide. At the same time they can actually see the way their help will change young lives forever, creating career opportunities they could only have
previously dreamt of”.
The e-Learning Foundation already works with a number of large corporations on projects including DSGi, Virgin Media, The Mercers’ Company, Lloyds’ Charities Trust and The Vodafone UK Foundation.
Editor’s notes:
• 1.4 million school age children in the UK live in homes without a computer
• 2.8 million children lack home access to the Internet
• 37% of those without a computer come from single parent households
For further information, please contact
e-Learning Foundation Jan Howells. PR.
Tel: +44 (0) 1932 796036 email: Ja*@e-******************.com
E-learning Foundation:
The e-Learning Foundation was launched in 2001, to ensure that every schoolchild in the UK should have home access to learning technologies when and where they want to learn.
The Foundation, a registered charity, aims to bridge the digital divide and ensure that all children, irrespective of their background, can have the same access to technology for learning at home as their better off peers.
The Foundation is funded through the public, private and third sector in the form of Government grants, commercial sponsorship, grants and donations.
So far, the e-Learning Foundation has provided 65,000 primary and secondary school children with learning technologies to use at home and at school. The Foundation provides free advisory and support services to schools and financial help by way of grants, to help the most disadvantaged families with access to learning technologies. It also campaigns at national level to keep the digital divide at the forefront of public consciousness.
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.