The Digital Inclusion team recently visited the Mercy Foundation, a brilliant social charity organisation in Battersea. This was our first ever visit to a community centre where we met some incredible people and learnt more about the great digital inclusion work happening in their community.
About Mercy Foundation
The Mercy Foundation was established by Victoria Rodney, who re mortgaged her home so that she could help provide community support, engagement and outreach services to a disadvantaged community. Victoria runs and funds the centre, along with the help of some amazing volunteers (in some cases full time) to help the people in their community get online.
The centre provides a number of different services and activities, including skills training, a homework club for children, language classes, advice and support. Witnessing the work that Victoria and the volunteers are doing first hand and hearing the stories of the local residents was absolutely incredible.
What we learnt
We had the opportunity to speak to Victoria and find out more about her experience and the work that she is doing. We also met people from a range of different backgrounds, each with personal circumstances and their own set of challenges.
It was really great to see the work that is going on already and to learn from what is being done by others. This was our first visit to a community centre as a team and will definitely not be the last. We will continue to get out there and learn as much as we can about digital inclusion initiatives taking place and help as much as we can.
We are already looking forward to our next visit.