Fundraising campaign for laptops for children Council remove litter from seafront
A FUNDRAISING campaign has started to help provide children staying in Direct Provision Centres in County Wicklow with laptops.
Natalie Cox, Senior Child and Family Network coordinator for Wicklow with Tulsa, carried out an online digital survey as part of the Child and Young Person’s Services Committee (CYPSC).
The results from Wicklow’s three direct provision centres in the Garden County revealed that children staying at the properties had limited or no access to technology to assist with their education.
These findings led to Natalie trying to establish a way to provide computers for the 120 or so children in direct provision accommodation at the Grand Hotel in Wicklow town, Rathmore in Ashford and the Esplanade Hotel in Bray.
She said: ‘Children in Direct Provision have big dreams. From vet to scientist, pilot to doctor and amazing little rap artists. We in Tusla strive at every level to support these amazing resilient Children to both follow and achieve their dream. Children housed in direct provision are in need of our support.
‘Since March 13, the children housed in direct provision in Wicklow have not had access to school. They have also been limited in their ability to continue their studies at home due to their living conditions and lack of access to the computers and the internet.’
Natalie got in touch with a contact she has with the global online digital company called Udemy, which is an online education platform with over 50 million subscribers. They have a head office in Dublin and San Francisco.
‘Udemy had a meeting in relation to our issue and have agreed to donate laptops to the children and some adults in our Direct Provision centres in Wicklow,’ said Natalie.
‘Along with that they are now going to implement a global initiative to do the same, which is a great achievement for all children around the world. They are also willing to stay involved with us to offer online courses to residents of our Direct Provision Centres to facilitate various educational courses.’
Udemy also asked Natalie to complete a piece of footage with some of the young people around the difference that access to education can and will make to their lives.
A GoFundMe page has been established with the aim of raising €10,000. Udemy has agreed to match whatever sum is raised with their own donation.
‘Lack of access to education has enormous long term negative consequences so we hope to be able to provide around 80 laptops to all the kids who really need them,’ added Natalie.
Anyone wishing to make a donation toward the fundraising campaign can do as at https://www.gofundme.com/f/ udemy-refugee-children-in-need.
A VOLUME of waste of ‘airshow levels’ was removed from Bray Seafront the weekend before last, due to a combination of hot weather, and other sites being closed.
District Administrator David Forde said that people were using bins and businesses cleaning up around their own areas.
The Bray Tourism funded litter picking staff had started the previous Friday morning. Outdoor staff were transporting waste from the beach to their depot, with three roll-on roll-off skips filled over the weekend. ‘Most businesses have been doing their bit and picking up litter,’ said Mr Forde. He said that as vendors are operating a take-away service, the waste produced includes their packaging.
He said that with other sites unavailable, the seafront was a popular location for people to attend for a picnic or coffee.
Despite that, people were not dumping their waste and were using bins provided. Mr Forde said that there are approximately 75 receptacles available to the public on the seafront. They include the usual bins as well as extra wheelie bins and basket bins to provide extra capacity. Separately, the council collected rubbish which private residents of Woodbrook Glen had carried out on the old golf club lands.
This appeared to be due to gatherings of people drinking. Someone collected 10 bags of rubbish from the area and moved them down the roadway. While the golf club lands are technically in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown area and owned by Ballymore, the council had no difficulty collecting the bags and acknowledged the efforts gone to by residents to collect them.