UPDATE

When the government's lockdown began, Live Unlimited immediately identified there was a major issue with a large number of care leavers living mostly on their own who were unable to connect with friends and the outside world to do their coursework. They were feeling incredibly isolated, anxious and alone.

We knew we had do do something to help and launched our GiveADongle to buy wifi dongles for 90 care leavers with three months' worth of data.

Our campaign struck a real chord among our generous supporters, many of you telling us you could not imagine life in the lockdown without access to the internet. Within two weeks we'd smashed our fundraising target of £4,500 and to date we have raised more than £7,500 (including offline donations). On behalf of everyone at Live Unlimited we want to say a massive THANKYOU!!!!

This fantastic news means that to date we have bought more than 60 pieces of IT equipment to help young care leavers be connected including dongles, sims, media tablets, laptops and phones, such as Brenda and her son Hakeem (photographed above).

Without your generosity and support this would not have been possible.

The feedback we have received from the young people and their social carers has been incredible.

"You light up my life during this COVID-19 lockdown. Thank you so much for the tablet and internet sim. Now I can contact my uncle and friends," Asad Jan.

"You make me so happy! words cannot describe. With this tablet and sim I can do my course work and keep in touch with the rest of the world," Bernardo Karici.

The story of our campaign was picked up in the Ham and High newspaper and the Big Issue

We are delighted with the recent government announcement that it is to provide laptops, tablets and 4G routers to disadvantaded children including care leavers.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-major-package-to-support-online-learning

With this in mind we have decided to stop fundraising for this equipment and are instead focussing our efforts on support care leavers during lockdown with other items such as home gym equipment, online course fees, musical instruments and bicycles.

The need is still very urgent to support this extremely vulnerable group of people, so please do continue to donate. Every penny we raise will go towards supporting these young people to help them towards a better future.

Live Unlimited is a small local charity that supports *looked after children and young care leavers in the borough of Barnet with enrichment activities so they can learn new skills, grow in confidence, improve wellbeing, make new friends and break the cycle of disadvantage.

You can find out more about us at www.liveunlimited.org.uk

As some of the most vulnerable members of society, care experienced young people are four times more likely to end up with a mental health problem and struggle with living independently, often ending up homeless. Between 24 - 27 % of the prison population are care-experienced, yet less than 1% of under 18s enter the care system.

* A looked after child is a child under the age 18 who is cared for by the local authority. A care leaver is a young person aged 18- 25 who has left care but still receives support from their local authority.