Lloyd’s helps address the ’digital divide’ with charity donation

Lloyd’s Charities Trust has donated £50,000 to the e-Learning Foundation, to provide children from low income families with computers at home and access to their schools’ online networks for their studies.

The e-Learning Foundation is this year’s recipient of Lloyd’s Special Award 2008, a donation which goes to a charity working to address issues of interest to the Lloyd’s market.

Lord Mitchell, Chairman of the e-Learning Foundation, said:

“Increasingly, low income families are finding themselves on the wrong side of the digital divide through no fault of their own and are being disadvantaged in their future development through the lack of IT access for their studies. This generous donation from Lloyd’s Charities Trust will enable us to support further sustainable e-learning projects in schools in London, ensuring they have the technology skills required to take them forward in the 21st century.”

The Special Award donation from Lloyd’s Charities Trust will be directed towards supporting e-learning projects in schools in East London where Lloyd’s has long-standing links through Lloyd’s Community Programme.

The project will provide children in each selected school with laptop computers to use at school and home, enabling over 500 pupils across the project schools to have the e-learning tools they require for their education.

Graham White, Chairman of Lloyd’s Charities Trust, said:

“I am delighted that we are able to contribute in helping the e-Learning Foundation expand its positive work in East London. Investing in future talent – including unlocking the talent in our neighbouring communities – is something that the Lloyd’s market has a long-standing commitment to.

“Harnessing the potential of technology is important to every part of society and we hope that our Special Award will particularly help young people who might otherwise have found themselves excluded from the future opportunities that technology skills can open up.”

The project will be rolled out to local schools in 2009, which will coincide with the 20th anniversary of Lloyd’s support for East London through Lloyd’s Community Programme.

Lloyd’s also recently took part in a programme run by the National Skills Academy for Financial Services in Tower Hamlets College and the Chartered Insurance Institute, which saw local graduates come to Lloyd’s Claims team and several Managing Agents for six-week placements.

Notes to Editors:

Lloyd’s Charities Trust

Lloyd’s Charities Trust is the grant making charity for the Lloyd’s market. Established over fifty years ago, Lloyd’s Charities Trust has a long tradition of providing charitable support to a wide range of national and international charities on behalf of the Lloyd’s market. The Trust also works with and supports three partner charities, which change every three years. The current partner charities are: Coram, FARM-Africa and the Samaritans.

E-learning Foundation

Since 2000, the e-Learning Foundation has been working to erase the digital divide in the UK. The term digital divide refers to the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without, leading to digital inequality.
In the last seven years, the e-Learning Foudnation 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

Lloyd’s Community Programme

The Lloyd’s Community Programme gives people working at Lloyd’s and in the Lloyd’s market the opportunity to ‘put something back’ into the community on their doorstep through volunteering. It is run by the Community Affairs team at Lloyd’s and involves over 60 companies in the Lloyd’s market.

Last year, 900 volunteers from the Lloyd’s market took part in volunteering opportunities in East London through Lloyd’s Community Programme, including over 100 volunteers from the Corporation of Lloyd’s. Volunteering ranged from supporting children in Tower Hamlets and Hackney schools with literacy and numeracy skills, helping to regenerate the local community through team challenges such as renovating local parks.