Local company O’Halloran & O’Brien donated five brand-new HP Chromebooks to North Kent College with the hopes of supporting learners during the pandemic.
O'Halloran & O'Brien established itself as a leading groundwork and civil engineering contractor in the South East with offices in Kent and Surrey. They cover aspects of concrete frames, groundworks and infrastructure with professional staff and highly qualified labour.
Between 1.1million and 1.8million pupils do not have access to a laptop or tablet at home; that’s around 9% according to Ofcom. With over 880,000 only able to access the internet via mobile phone and 559,000 with no access at all.
Martyn Price, Workforce Development Director at O’Halloran & O’Brien reached out to Mark Andrews, Principal of North Kent College (Gravesend) through an online working group and explained how they wanted to make this donation to help learners that need access to a laptop for their studies during the pandemic.
Mark Andrews, Principal of North Kent College, Gravesend said, “I am delighted and humbled by the generosity of O’Halloran & O’Brien in making this donation. It will have a huge impact for the learners in Construction that have been struggling through the lockdowns with shared access, or less than ideal IT equipment. Now that they are back at college, these laptops will not only help them continue to stretch their learning, but in knowing that local Construction employers care about young people, they will provide the morale boost that many of them need to drive them to succeed in their chosen career.”
Martyn Price MBE, Workforce Development Director said, “O’Halloran & O’Brien Ltd are delighted to support students at North Kent College and see the computers as the first step in developing a collaborative partnership to offer work experience, plant simulator training and industry accredited training to construction students on study programmes at the College. Recently we signed and committed to the Social Mobility Pledge and we are a firm believer that everyone should have an equal opportunity to progress into employment and see these computers as an enabler for those less fortunate to otherwise achieve their full potential.”
He continued “We are in the final stages of development for the formal opening of a new OHOB Training Academy in Gravesend which is less than ½ mile from the North Kent College campus, the opportunity to support and showcase our opportunities to local construction students is a ‘no brainer’ it would be great to see in years to come experienced OHOB trade operatives and site managers imitating from North Kent College going back to speak and share their experience with the next generation of construction students.”
The Chromebooks will be donated to learners at Gravesend who have struggled with digital access during the lockdowns and they will use them through their remaining time at college to help them catch up.
Thanks again to O’Halloran & O’Brien for their wonderful donation and North Kent College look forward to the future partnership.
