The digitalisation of our society is going faster and faster. But far from everyone is on board with this. There are still many children, young people and families who are digitally excluded. And this has a major impact on their education and later their employment. With OVWB, we already launched several hot education projects to give everyone in our country access to the digital world. Our 3 major initiatives are:

1. Turn your hardware into Heartware

Laptops are almost impossible to imagine classrooms without. But for many families, buying a laptop is not a given. Especially when you know that 42% of single-parent families are digitally vulnerable. That is why, together with Telenet our Heartware-project. Through this, we call on businesses and families to donate laptops. We collect the used laptops, wipe everything from the device, refurbish it and distribute it to underprivileged families so that everyone can join the digital gear.

So far, we have already collected more than 7,000 laptops helping more than 5,000 families in 67 Belgian cities.

2. Cyber Savvy Kids

Recent research by the King Baudouin Foundation shows that 52 % of low-skilled young people have poor digital skills. Skills are weakest when it comes to online safety: as many as 28 % of Belgians know nothing about it, and among people with at most a primary school diploma, that figure even rises to 63 %. This while children are increasingly online.

Not everyone has access to the digital world, putting vulnerable children at greater risk of digital exclusion. Result: they lag behind in school and social development. That is why we entered into a partnership with Link in The Cable and focused Cyber Savvy Kids on: workshops in schools teaching digital skills.

In the first half of 2024, we successfully launched this project at 9 schools in Limburg. 530 pupils from the 4^the to 6^the year and the first 2 classes of secondary school learned in a playful way what the pitfalls of the internet are through an interactive workshop. The workshop also helps identify where additional digital skills support is needed.

3. Online Empowerment

Together with our partner Ligo last school year, we supported 10 BENO projects. BENO stands for Basiseucatie na OKAN and offers job-seeking young people aged between 18 and 25 who still need to develop their Dutch skills support for their integration and development. We were able to help 185 young people directly with this!

Thanks to this partnership, we now also assist parents of vulnerable children with their digital skills. An important project, as parents play a key role in their child's digital development.

Thanks to these projects, both children and their parents are better prepared for the challenges of the digital society.