A computer to change Safae's life
A master student has raised money to buy devices and give them to underprivileged students
Safae wants to be an "aircraft engineer" and also "create materials, structures, machines". However, she does not have a computer at home. She has been doing her school homework on her mobile phone, and sometimes she has not been able to finish it because it was too difficult to type "with such small keys". Hers is one of the 55,000 families in Catalonia who do not have internet connectivity or do not have enough devices or data, as detected by the Department of Education in the wake of the pandemic. Born in Morocco fourteen years ago, she arrived in Spain a year and a bit ago and, after some time in Castilla-La Mancha, she has been living in Olot for seven months with her mother and two of her siblings. She is doing well, she says. She speaks almost perfect Spanish, which she used to reinforce during her lockdown by watching "a lot of Disney and anime films and series to learn vocabulary". Now he wants to learn Catalan, "but it's difficult". She speaks quickly and laughs when she finishes answering each question. She was sitting in her 3rd ESO class when her teacher told her that "a very nice boy" would give her a computer. Her first computer.
"I was very surprised, happy and nervous", Safae admits, aware of the change it will mean for her "to be able to finish all her homework". The "very nice boy" is called Gerard Giménez, a graduate in business administration and now a student of a master's degree in statistics at the UPC. "I thought I had been very lucky because during lockdown I had a computer with which I learned to program, and I've always learned a lot by watching YouTube videos or reading Wikipedia entries", he says. He just wanted all children to have access to the infinite knowledge that the internet gives, but he knew that there are many students in Catalonia who don't have enough resources to do so. He decided that something had to be done. And so was born Un ordinador per tothom (translated as "A computer for everyone").
Gerard knew about non-profit associations that sell computers for 75 euros and monitors for about 50 and opened a crowdfunding campaign to raise money. "With little money we could have a big impact", he thought. The goal was to distribute about ten computers throughout 2021. But in a month and a half he has already exceeded any expectations: "Now it turns out that I already have twenty computers at home, ready to hand out". They are not very powerful devices, but they will allow the boys and girls who receive them to surf the internet and do school work.
After Safae's, the only thing left to do now is to decide which desks Gerard has bought the devices for. And for that he relies on the criteria of the school staff. "I think there is no one who knows the reality of the boys and girls better than their teachers", he argues. With this in mind, he contacted the headmaster of the school where he had studied and called other schools to see if they would be interested. "They thought I wanted to sell them computers at a low price!" he explains. The school drew up a list of about ten students who didn't have computers at home. "When they told me about Safae, who wanted to be an aircraft engineer and loved numbers, I thought that one had to be for her. She is a girl who has all the possibilities in front of her, but they are limited by the fact that she doesn't have technology at home. I think it's essential to have a computer to learn maths", says Gerard. He wanted to prioritize girls. "Sometimes there is still a certain discrimination because we think that only boys have to like technological things. In engineering there is a brutal lack of women, and they also have few references". Of the forty students in Gerard's master degree, only seven or eight of them are girls.
However, having already achieved his goal only encourages him to make the initiative grow. "As long as there are situations like Safae's, we will have work to do", says Gerard, who does not hide the fact that he would like the administration to cover the investment. Now he is looking for companies that want to make a recurring donation to continue buying computers, in order to continue paving steep roads to educational success. Safae, a bit excited, explains it in the following way: "What Gerard has done means a lot to me, because he has given me an opportunity to create my future".
