Housing trust gives children free computer tablets
Youngsters living on a Black Country housing estate will now have access to 10 computer tablets which have been donated to provide help with online learning during the coronavirus pandemic.
The tablets will be used by youngster living on Dudley's Wrens Nest estate, where the youth centre has been forced to close due to the lockdown.
They were handed out by Black Country Housing Group as part of a scheme funded by Dudley Council to improve cohesion in the community.
The project, which is managed by Wrens Nest Youth Centre, Dudley Community Church and the housing group, the project aims to reduce anti-social behaviour within the Dudley borough.
The tablets will allow youth leaders to hold weekly sessions while the centre is closed, allowing the children to reconnect with each other in positive, innovative ways.
They will also allow 10 children to form a youth committee which will hold a weekly video-conferencing session with Avija Cerevko, the youth centre’s community development officer.
PC Hughie Treasure, who is overseeing the project on the estate, said: "The incredible donations will make a significant difference to these 10 children who do not have access to IT facilities at home, enabling them to not only reconnect with each other in positive, creative controlled ways, but also to have a focus during these difficult times’’.
Peter Hoarle, of Black Country Housing, said the group was about more than bricks and mortar.
"We are a social business investing in people and communities," he said.
Mr Hoarle said the group's community development and officer Merisha Smith had formed relationships with Dudley Council, the police, church, youth centre and the local community to enable this and other projects to take place during the lockdown.
