#CompuEnCasa: a solidarity response so no one is left without classes

By Germán Ruiz, Miguel Crespi, Soledad Frechou and Carolina Dovat
#CompuEnCasa Team

The #CompuEnCasa project originated in the first months of the Pandemic, when each of our homes suddenly had to be transformed into a school to allow us to do remotely everything we had usually done in person. We became aware that computers would enable us to ensure continuity in the educational system, and when available, they open up a world of opportunities for individual and collective development. So here we saw the opportunity.

The need for changing computers is very frequent in the corporate world. Multinational companies frequently issue orders to change the system or to make changes to meet global standards. It is often the case that they discard their old computers, which are still in good shape and can be used for other purposes.

And so, the initiative arose to gather a group of honorary collaborators that could contact the corporate world to obtain equipment, which could be then refurbished for educational purposes with very little investment. We started to act as a link between the companies that offered the donations and the final recipients. We also received donations from individuals and private schools that had surplus equipment.

That led us to contact Fundación ReachingU, as we knew they could help us find the most vulnerable schools that could make the best use of this equipment. But not everything was solved right away.

Computers used for education require webcams and the ability to connect to the Internet, which may demand the use of peripherals, unless they are laptops. Fundación ReachingU also offered to buy these elements that were required to deliver fully functional computers to each student.

Our honorary work consisted of receiving, sorting, diagnosing the condition of the hardware received and preparing it for delivery to new beneficiaries. This required a lot of work by technicians who volunteered many hours of their time. The solidarity project extended for almost 4 months, and 273 complete computers were delivered to a number of organizations of the Fundación ReachingU network.