Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
GET SWITCHED ON ABOUT FINANCES
My pet peeve – digital inequality – is finally getting a spotlight shone on it thanks to a new campaign called Leave Nobody in the Dark.
In the UK, 11.7 million people lack basic digital skills and there are an estimated
1.9 million households with no internet access – including my own mum!
Mastercard has formed a coalition with charity partners The Good Things Foundation and The Joseph Rowntree Foundation to target these households, many of whom are living on the breadline.
Offering personal 1-2-1 support, digital devices and bespoke online resources, the campaign has already made pulled a young mum out of the red.
Kerry had found debts were mounting up and she was finding it hard to provide for her young son. But after attending IT sessions courtesy of her housing provider in Walsall, Kerry, 30, is now in control of her finances and has become debt free.
She explains: “I had an overdraft with my bank which kept going up and up and up. The money was going in but it wasn’t balancing out. I became a bit of an insomniac wondering if I could feed my son.”
Through the Click Start programme, Kerry learned basic IT which went through emails, Excel, Word and online banking.
She says, “Before I did the course, I never checked my bank balance. They helped me to set up an online bank account and now I manage my money a lot better.
“I’ve set up different bank accounts so I know what’s coming in and going out, and I managed to save up enough to get rid of the overdraft completely.”