Somerset volunteers donate laptops to Ukrainian refugees

18-year-old Yulia and her mum arrived in Somerset from war-torn Kharviv a week ago

Volunteers who helped to donate hundreds of laptops to school pupils during the pandemic are now helping Ukrainian refugees.

SCHol Tech are installing the Ukrainian language onto computers and delivering them across Somerset.

The Taunton-based group of IT specialists have been refurbishing donated laptops since early 2021.

Student Yulia Haidenko, whose Kharkiv university is continuing online, said her new device "will be very useful".

The 18-year-old said the university had been destroyed during the Russian invasion but lessons were still taking place.

Her host Ruth Knowlman said the laptops would help her guests set up essentials such as online bank accounts.

She said laptops were "a big thing to carry" out of Ukraine.

"They've [refugees] come with so little and had to leave so much behind that this is a huge help."

Host Ruth said the laptops would help her communicate with her new guests

The scheme was started in early 2021 by Bridgwater father-of-three, Dan Taylor, who wanted to provide free computers for schoolchildren taking classes online during the second coronavirus lockdown.

It is now run by Tim Finch, Carl Molyneux and Brian Tagg who all live in the Taunton and Wellington area.

The team of IT professionals have collected, processed, and then delivered more than 210 free laptops with the support of local volunteers.

On Thursday the first three Ukrainian language laptops were handed to refugees who had arrived in the area after fleeing their homeland.

Carl Molyneux (left) and Tim Finch (right) have day jobs in IT

"Initially for the pandemic it was obviously an education crisis, people trying to home-school children without devices," said Mr Molyneux.

"We came to the end of lockdowns and we found the demand was still there so we've just kept going," he added.

Mr Finch said: "We did wonder, after helping something like 150 families in the area during the lockdown, whether our initiative would be short-lived.

"However, the new cost-of-living crisis, and now the refugee situation, raised the importance of continuing to help those in our area most in need."

The laptops use the Ukrainian language with keyboards showing both the Roman and Cyrillic alphabets

The team have adapted the laptops so they can be switched easily between English and Ukrainian, put together with feedback from a local Ukrainian resident.

Mr Molyneux said this allowed them to prepare laptops specific to the needs of both Eastern and Western Ukrainians.

"We hope this is just the start of our ability to provide native language machines to refugees from other nations who come here, often with very little," he added.