The Smith Family

This grant provides funding for their Digital Learning Essentials program, which is offered to students supported on their core Learning for Life program. The Digital Learning Essentials helps to bridge the digital divide, providing children experiencing disadvantage with laptops, internet and tech support. The program is premised on the view that digital access is a critical element of school education and we, as a nation, are not adequately equipping children from disadvantaged backgrounds with what they need to participate in our digital world.

This is a well-established program that is already working successfully. Colonial’s funding aims to increase the reach of the program to significantly more families. In contrast to our funding relationship with FRRR, this program is focused on children’s education, rather than adult education.

Through this grant the Foundation has sought to counterbalance our strong research weighting with funding that directly and transactionally supports a significant symptom of disadvantage.