Eradicating Digital Poverty in Fingal

Connect & Include is a campaign to eradicate digital poverty in Fingal County. The campaign is run by Empower, the local development company for Fingal.

Over the next three years, Connect & Include aims to raise €250,000 (or equivalent through in-kind support) to provide the hardware, software, connectivity and digital literacy supports needed to lift 500 young people, families and individuals out of digital poverty.

At Empower, we know that donating a laptop to someone who needs one is often not enough to address the challenges they face. If the recipient does not have the money to purchase basic software, cannot access broadband, or does not have basic digital skills, there is little they can achieve with the laptop by itself.

That’s why Connect & Include offers tailored, holistic supports to every single family and individual with whom we work.

Alongside our service delivery, we are:

1. Fundraising and engaging with corporate supporters to ensure we can provide local people with the digital skills, connectivity, hardware and software they need;
2. Raising awareness amongst government, the business community and wider stakeholders in our sector to ensure the narrative changes from the current narrow focus on ‘digital exclusion’ to a broader one of ‘digital poverty’; and that digital poverty is recognised as a human rights issue; and
3. Taking a partnership approach to this work – by bringing together corporate, community, voluntary and statutory stakeholders to collaborate, innovate and build the digital capacity of all residents in Fingal County.

Help us today by donating now on our JustGiving page here.