The hidden challenges of Covid-19

Covid-19 has been challenging for all of us but can disproportionately negatively affect those who are also facing other challenging life circumstances.

I was in a meeting this week where a number of key people were discussing the current support being offered to a young person. In reviewing the young persons college course, it was noted that their attendance had only been 50%!

So what do you think was going on? Laziness or perhaps a lack of motivation or organisational skill?

You may have heard that a lot of post school educational settings are not running many (if any) face-to-face sessions at the moment. This is certainly the case for a number of colleges and training providers. In lots of cases courses are delivered via video conferencing and work is being emailed out to students.

So… the young person in question had missed 50% of their ‘online’ classes rather than not turning up to ‘in-person’ sessions!

After a little bit of digging we found out that the young person in question was sharing a laptop with their sister who coincidentally has lessons to attend at the exact same time as her brother. Both students are achieving 50% attendance because they are taking it in turns!!

On a number of occasions this year I’ve had to correct people’s assumption that all young people are ‘great’ with technology. People have assumed that as a charity we’ve been able to seamlessly  move things online because we work with young adults. People forget that not every household has iPhones, tablets and a bundle of laptops. Not all households can afford the internet, especially an internet connection that enables college via video conferencing.

The young person in question is now on the bottom of a waiting list with their college to get funding for a free laptop. Apparently the demand this year for ‘emergency funding’ has been huge. They don’t anticipate he’ll reach the top of the list until the middle of next term. So that’s at least another 6 weeks at 50% and another 6 weeks of falling behind his more technologically equipped class mates.

We’re obviously not going to let that happen! At Grow we have access to some basic refurbished laptops. Will you help us purchase one of these laptops so we can loan it to this and other young people?

This week we have been struck by how pre-existing social inequality is making it difficult for some of our young people to adjust to the realities of life in 2020. The above is a real life of example of how the achievement gap can very quickly get bigger between those born into more affluent families and those born into less affluent families.

To help us offer support would you consider donating just £5? To donate please text 5grow to 70085. We hope to raise £500 in order to create a fund for this and similar situations.

(If we raise more than this figure we will use the extra funds to help continue making our 2021 farm sessions Covid safe).