Medway Rugby Club are doing their bit to help tackle the ‘digital divide’.

The club are accepting donations of laptops and tablets to be redistributed to local families who have struggled to access online education.

Donations have also been welcomed to help with the cost of refurbishing the devices and - as of Monday - were closing in on their £1,000 target.

Delce Academy were among the first to benefit, with a donation of four chromebooks, and more devices have been sent to Veritas Digital Services for refurbishment.

At the start of the week they had received 54 old laptops, 16 old tablets and five new devices.

England international Maro Itoje has got behind the campaign, which is being taken up by rugby clubs across the country.

He said: “The absolute priority right now is guaranteeing children have devices to learn.

“When they go back to school we need a review on access to laptops to support careers in a digitally-driven world.”

A Medway RFC spokesperson said: “Having been in touch with a number of local primary schools, we have come to understand the difficulties that some of our local families are having and although the schools have received some items from the government scheme, there is still a shortfall in the number of laptops/tablets.”

The clubhouse is open for donations to be dropped off on Mondays 12pm-2pm, Thursdays 10pm-12pm and Saturdays 11am-1pm. All devices are professional cleaned and reinstalled with updated software. Details of the crowd funding can be found at mrfc.net.

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