Combating the digital divide

In order to ensure the students can finish off the school year satisfactorily, the Rafa Nadal Foundation has delivered tablets to those children and young who were participating in the Rafa Nadal Foundation Centers and don’t have access to technological resources, whose rights to education have consequently been undermined due to the COVID-19 crisis.

This initiative is part of the project developed by the Spanish Association of Foundations (AEF, in Spanish) e Indra, through which 5,023 tablets have been donated to 29 non-profit organizations. The distribution of tablets has come with 3,000 SIM cards for those students who haven’t got WiFi connectivity. Additionally, a team of “digital volunteers” is going to advise and monitor the students regarding the handling of the educational tools, ensuring a profitable use.
 
“With this action coordinated by the AEF, the organizations can reach where almost nobody has been able to: those children and teenagers who are at risk of falling behind without the on-site aspect of school classes. This becomes the most powerful initiative within the “chain of solidarity” the AEF initiated in March, aiming at the alleviation of the effects caused by the COVID-19 crisis. So far, near 200 organizations have started up hundreds of actions to help the most vulnerable groups who are facing all kinds of consequences due to the health emergency”, the AEF explains.

The Rafa Nadal Foundation has distributed 56 tablets: 36 for the students of the Rafa Nadal Foundation Center in Palma and 20 for students of the center in Valencia.