With the continued home-schooling restrictions in place and the move to online learning and digital training, the impact on underprivileged children and adults is undeniable. This is particularly pertinent among those struggling to stay in education or seeking jobs and training opportunities under the current Covid-19 guidelines.

The Social Value team at Bouygues Construction UK, along with help from our IT Department, has set up a UK-wide initiative, to refurbish, clean and set up over 400 laptops for donation. These are currently being sent across the UK and divided out to the schools and charities with which Bouygues Construction UK work. We hope these will assist both adults and children in their journey through education and employment opportunities.

Bouygues Energies & Services alone has donated over 60 laptops to different schools and organisations across the UK. We have already received amazing feedback as to the positive impact these donations are having.

Shermaine Lewis, School Business Manager at Frederick Bremer School said: "Thank you to Bouygues UK for the generous donation of laptops to Frederick Bremer School. We have a substantial number of pupils who have no access to devices at home, which would no doubt hinder their progress during the national lockdown. However, your generosity has meant we are able to support more pupils to continue their education and maintain contact with the school during a very challenging time."

As well as donating laptops externally, we are also pleased to announce that a further 50 clean laptops will be allocated to our Bouygues Energies & Services staff who might not have the resources available to work from home.

There will be more laptops to donate to staff across all entities, as they are cleaned and made available.

Our CSR Director, Leigh Hughes, said: “As a responsible business working across the UK we wanted to donate these laptops to assist young learners in their continued educational development and give job seekers the opportunity to develop their digital skills to allow them to access the workplace.

Both our CSR teams and our IT department have been working hard to get as many laptops ready, as quickly as possible, for donation. The effects of Covid-19 have been devastating, with much of it out of our control, but we sincerely hope that these laptops might help make some people’s lives that little bit more manageable.”