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IT equipment gets new lease of life supporting local communities
Our social enterprise Starts with you has partnered with a local organisation to recycle its old IT equipment and help local people get online.
Starts with you creates opportunities in Bolton to help local people access quality jobs. They’ve supplied used electrical equipment to Recycle-IT, so that it can receive a new lease of life helping local people with internet access and computer-based learning.
The first contribution to Recycle IT involves six computer processors, 22 smartphones and a TFT/flat panel monitor. The equipment, which has been replaced by Starts with you, is sanitised and digitally wiped before being repurposed to support the local community.
The equipment will be distributed to local people so they can use online services such as banking, applying for work, managing finances and staying connected with others to prevent loneliness and isolation.
The partnership between Starts with you and Recycle-IT will be ongoing and aims to contribute more equipment to make sure more members of our communities can get online and benefit from the opportunities that brings.
Hayley Hulme, Managing Director of Starts with you, said: “Working with businesses from and for the community in Bolton and who are committed to making a Positive Change is really important to us.
“We’re delighted to have found Recycle-IT, to make sure our old equipment can be responsibly recycled in the communities that need it. We know our data is safely and professionally removed before when it’s reused in the community.
“Our partnership with Recycle-IT also follows our plans to support community-minded social enterprises and we really value the benefits from supporting similar social enterprises which exist to support our local people and communities. While this is our first contribution, we hope to supply more equipment which can be reused in the near future.”
Recycle-IT was founded by a former Big Issue vendor who understands barriers to progression for people, with the social enterprise planning to scale up to a training and refurbishing warehouse within the next two years.
John Hastings, Founder and Lead Director at Recycle-IT, added: “We thank Starts with you for a contribution which can make a big difference locally. It was our pleasure to have collected the unloved but still very useful equipment and begin to process it through our workshop alongside trained staff and local volunteers.
“We’re an environment agency-licenced professional service and a vital community resource uniquely placed between both with co-production and community inclusion central to our development.
“Partnerships like this genuinely help to make a difference to not only the planet as we have a zero per cent landfill policy but the digitally excluded members of our communities.”
For more information about Starts with you and its support services, please visit www.startswithyou.org.uk
Pictured left to right are Hayley Hulme, Claire Calman (Business and People Manager of Starts with you), and John Hastings.