The EDP Foundation is going to support digital empowerment in national education by donating one million euros worth of computers to state schools. The group of schools and respective students who will receive this equipment have been flagged up in partnership with the Ministry of Education, and are part of the TEIP programme – Educational Territories for Priority Intervention. They are based in economically and socially deprived territories, and are affected by poverty and social exclusion.
These funds will be used to purchase around 3000 computers that will serve to support the education of students who are economically and socially vulnerable, from primary to secondary education.
The first computers will be delivered over the next few days in School Cluster No. 1 of Beja, in order to support remote learning, triggered by the escalation of the Covid-19 pandemic. They will be available for students to use throughout their academic path. The remaining computers will be distributed among the identified schools according to supplier availability.
“Social investment in priority areas of Portuguese society is part of the EDP Foundation’s DNA. Since our young people are having to return to remote learning, we wish to contribute to the digital inclusion of vulnerable students, thus helping to create more favourable conditions to their academic success,” says Vera Pinto Pereira, president of the EDP Foundation.
This computer donation is part of the EDP Solidarity Programme, one of the main private lines of social investment in Portugal. The EDP Solidarity Programme was created in 2004 to support projects that improve the quality of life of socially deprived people, and to promote the integration of communities at risk of social exclusion. Since then, the programme has supported the implementation or maintenance of over 400 initiatives in the areas of Social and Health Inclusion, amounting to an investment of over 15 million euros.
In 2020, the EDP Solidarity Programme channelled 500 thousand euros for the purchase of personal protective equipment – disposable masks, gloves, goggles and gowns –, which benefitted around 26 thousand users and staff members in 300 nursing homes across 16 districts in the country.
