Fairbridge is a national youth charity which exists to build self-belief and motivation in the most challenging young people, offering them the foundations for a life full of choices and opportunity. Every year Fairbridge wins the trust and commitment of 3,500 young people aged 13 to 25. Outside education, employment or training, or a risk of dropping out, these are young people most other organisations have found it difficult to work with.  

The centres are based in 15 of the most disadvantaged urban areas in the country, including Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, The Medway Towns, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Rochdale, Salford, Southampton and Swansea.  Fairbridge combines long-term personal support with practical learning experiences to tackle ingrained behaviour and attitudes and enable young people to develop personal, social and life skills.
Many Fairbridge clients, who come from families with long histories of unemployment, see no practical application for any of the ICT skills they may have learnt at school. With training often only available in a formal setting, many are put off engaging with ICT for anything other than entertainment, as they don’t see traditional ICT skills such as using spreadsheets or word processing as relevant or appealing.

“Our relationship with Microsoft is a first class example of the synergy that can exist between charities and big business.  Their support goes far beyond a strategy to produce concrete results: by providing funding for IT courses.  The young people we work with often think themselves incapable of success, but these IT courses give them the opportunity they need to develop their skills and massively improve their prospects in terms of training, employment and hope for the future.”
Cara Owen
Corporate Fundraiser
Fairbridge

Computer Technology Learning Centres (CTLC)
Last year, Fairbridge received Unlimited Potential support from Microsoft to help bridge the digital divide. Funding from Microsoft allowed Fairbridge to establish IT training facilities in their centres in Teesside and Tyne and Wear. So far over 400 young people have accessed the equipment at some stage of their Fairbridge journey. Specialist courses have also been running to teach ICT skills to the young people, providing them with the tools they need to move into education, employment or training.  Through fun and innovative courses, Fairbridge demonstrates to young people that learning basic ICT skills is not just an end in itself, but a valuable tool to enable them to achieve their goals.