Too many disabled, over-65, and low-income families with children attending school don’t have access to the devices or ICT training that they need to connect to online resources.

Often times, older computers, laptops and other devices requiring repair are scrapped or discarded rather than being refurbished.

Young leaders in secondary school don’t always have extraordinary opportunities to give back to their communities while learning leadership, digital, team and job skills.

Community Connects is a community initiative by an NGO where 4700 young leaders in secondary schools have volunteered, refurbished and donated more than 44,000 computers, laptops and other devices to schools, public libraries, NGOs and families.

Older and broken computers, laptops and devices are donated by businesses, government and other organizations.

Secondary school teachers teach students how to repair the devices and the students volunteer after school to refurbish them.

The devices are donated and students use Community Connects’ ICT training to teach the elderly, the disabled and low-income families.

The program has partnered with 100s of NGOs and provided computers to 100s of ICT centers, increasing broadband access to over 250,000 individuals.

1000s of unrepairable devices have been recycled in an environmentally friendly manner.

https://www.communityconnects.org

• Argentina
• Canada
• India
• South Africa
• United States of America

• Youth
• Older persons
• Women
• Indigenous and nomadic peoples
• People with disabilities
• The unemployed
• The poor
• Migrants
• Refugees and internally displaced people
• Remote and rural communities

Community Connects is a highly replicable end-to-end program used by community organizations, schools, NGOs, businesses and government to partner together to help increase digital inclusion since 2003. There are few barriers that prevent participation but the program requires a lead organization and community partnerships.

We have found that government supports ICT inclusion and literacy projects because it helps their citizens and supports other civic initiatives. The media and businesses support these projects because it reflects well on them. Individual students and youth leaders have made inquiry how they could start their own Community Connects program and to help facilitate implementation of this program by single students, we developed an ascertain and implementation guide here - https://www.netliteracy.org/community-connects/faqs/

We use open-source software, and our repurposing and ITC training curriculum and safety training materials are free and online. The website is translatable into 104 languages and our downloadable ICT training materials are in Spanish, Russian and English. Website materials can be modified by organizations for their specific use or be used as is.

Community Connects research outcomes are here - https://www.netliteracy.org/community-connects/research-and-outcomes/.

The program’s primary audience are secondary school students and they are especially interested in volunteering, ICT and technology.

Net Literacy, an NGO that presented to the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development in September 2012 as a digital literacy good practice example provides guidance and responds to questions about Community Connects by email.

The Community Connects program launched 18 years ago and is a highly sustainable initiative. It is easy to set up because all of the procedures and curriculum has been developed, are available online and can be customized to meet local requirements.

We have partnered with the media, schools, government and NGOs which significantly enhanced sustainability. Resources are decentralized and there is synergy and collaboration between all partner organizations.

Community Connects offers good citizenship, leadership and volunteering opportunities for secondary school students. Starting a Community Connects program is one of the only ways that schools can assure a supply of free computers to their families that do not have one at home.

Typically, school offer Community Connects as part of a school club or as an afterschool program. Students learn how to load software after less than 30 minutes of instruction and how to repair computers after a few hours of on-the-job training.

NGOs often partner with schools and other NGOs, the government, businesses and media to promote Computer Connects.

Municipalities have proclaimed a digital inclusion day and established collection sites on municipal property, the media has advertised the computer collection drives, and students have volunteered to collect donated computers.

Community Connects bridges the digital divide and promotes the WSIS values of access to information and knowledge, capacity building, linguistic diversity and local content, an enabling environment, benefits in all aspects of life and international and regional cooperation. Community Connects promotes equality, solidarity and shared responsibility because all computers, teaching materials, construction of ICT labs, ICT training and all other services are provided free of charge and in an inclusive manner. This program teaches all people the digital skills needed for life and to understand, participate actively in and benefit fully from the Information Society and the knowledge economy. Community Connects promotes volunteering and giving back to the community and through its public library initiative, has donated over 1000 computers. Through its partnerships between schools, media companies and NGOs, Community Connects has been a sustainable and capacity building program since 2003. The web-based content is translatable into 104 diverse languages and downloadable computer and Internet training are available in English, Spanish and Russian which makes this program accessible to a larger population. Community Connects is one of seven of Net Literacy’s digital inclusion and digital literacy initiatives. We have visited Australia, Europe, Asia and Africa to meet with NGOs and share digital inclusion and digital literacy problems and solutions. Community Connects uses an open-source operating system to repurpose computers and focuses on those with the lowest incomes, people of color, the homeless, the disabled and senior citizens.