Social project
The “We are connected” campaign reduces the digital gap of school-age children
- Through this solidarity project, it is expected that at the end of the year, more than 50 vulnerable families will enjoy a year of free connection.
- According to data from the Barcelona City Council, 8.1% of low-income households do not have access to the Internet, which is a major problem for school-age children.
Connectivity, the division of connectivity solutions for companies of the Call2World group, launched a social project to bring the Internet to those families with fewer economic resources.
Since the end of the pandemic, many schools have decided to keep part of their classes online.
However, according to data from the report presented by the Barcelona City Council, 8.1% of families are still offline, making it difficult to access the Internet to be able to continue with school activities from home.
The lack of connection in the homes of families at risk of social exclusion is an added difficulty in the education of these children that has been aggravated by the post-pandemic situation, making it more necessary than ever to have a good Internet connection.
To contribute to this situation, in October 2020, Connectivity launched the social project ‘We are connected’ with which they collaborate with Schools and Institutions in Barcelona and its metropolitan area to offer free Internet connection for one year to families who cannot afford the cost of connecting to the network.
For every 20 fibers installed in the company’s clients, 1 free fiber is allocated to a family in need.
The project focuses on the Barcelona metropolitan area, where they collaborate with the “Casal del Raval”, “Escola Jaume I” (Barcelona), “Escola Josep Maria Folch i Torres” (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat) schools and the “Pa de Sant Antoni” and “AFA Escola” associations of Catalonia.
Currently, Connectivity has already helped 30 families, distributed between Hospitalet, Cornellà and Barcelona, mainly in the Raval area, although the goal is to be able to incorporate 5 or 6 families a month into the program, providing quality connection to more than 50 families at the end of the year.
“Although it seems obvious that all homes in Spain have Internet, this is not the case. Many families cannot afford a good connection, leaving them at a disadvantage in both employment and educational opportunities.
For this reason, we have decided to launch this project, based on our experience and with connectivity solutions that can help disadvantaged families to have better access to the Internet”, comments Kiko Fábregas, CEO of Connectivity’s mother company, about this project.
“From the Obra Social Pa de Sant Antoni we are very grateful for the ‘We are connected’ project.
One of our families in a vulnerable situation has been able to benefit and enjoy fiber optics for free and super fast installation.
When we communicated it to the family they could not believe it, since for them it was a luxury that they could not afford at the moment.
A “luxury” that we now believe is very necessary as it allows them to communicate with their country, Ukraine.
Thank you very much for this initiative and treatment received”, says Laura Solanes, educator of the Obra Social Pa de Sant Antoni.
“This year, like the previous one, some of the most vulnerable families in the center have been able to access the Internet in their homes thanks to the social project “We are connected”, which has given them fiber for a year at no cost.
With this, the beneficiary families have managed to bridge the digital gap, which is becoming larger in our society and which prevented children from accessing digital content on an equal footing with the rest of the student body.
On behalf of our families, thank you very much for the opportunity provided”, thanks Ferran Vilar, Director of the Josep Maria Folch i Torres school.
Led by Kiko Fábregas and Manuel Garriga, both of whom have more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications sector, the company achieved notable growth in 2021, tripling the client portfolio as well as the level of billing from the previous year.
Thus, the company has decided to allocate part of its profits to social projects like this one, to reduce the digital divide in Catalan families.