Through the Estonian Union for Child Welfare, the Ministry of Defence is providing 88 sets of computers to families in need, which will facilitate school work for children who lack the required devices for distance learning.
According to Margus Matt, Undersecretary for Legal and Administrative Affairs of the Ministry of Defence, the computers are no longer needed by the Defence Forces; however, they are decent machines that are suitable for learning.
‘It is a great pleasure to present a small gift to the children of families in need before Christmas’, said Matt.
Matt specified that all of the computers come with mice and keyboards, and added that the Estonian Union for Child Welfare was also given more than 19 monitors.
Ireen Kangro, the coordinator of the Child Welfare Association of the Citizens’ Initiative ‘Every Schoolchild!’ noted that the gift from the Ministry of Defence is arriving at the right time, since school children forced into distance learning by COVID-19 require computers to complete their schoolwork.
‘Thanks to the computers donated by the Ministry of Defence, they can participate in school work without hindrance behind their computer at home’, said Kangro.
According to Kangro, there are hundreds of families in need of help, where there are no computers for students to use or there is only one for many children.
‘Based on this, there are always more indirect beneficiaries than computers – this is how the 88 computers donated by the Ministry of Defence actually help significantly more than 88 schoolchildren’, said Kangro.
With the support of the donation collected by the Estonian E-Commerce Association, new hard drives will be installed on the desktop computers provided by the Ministry of Defense, additional equipment and monitors necessary for school work will be procured.
All of the computers ready for use will reach families in Narva, with the first arriving next week.
Since April, the Estonian Union for Child Welfare has been a partner of the civic initiative ‘A Computer for Every School Child’ and a link between companies and local governments wishing to donate computers.
Additional information: [email protected]