Here at Newcastle Apostolic Church, we have been welcoming people from all over the world.At the moment, we are counting 24 different nationalities among our members.

During lockdown, one of the first things we had to do was to pull together to keep in touch and to support one another.  We quickly discovered was that quite a few people didn’t have a laptop, didn’t have enough IT-skills, couldn’t join our online meetings, couldn’t make online enquiries, bookings, or appointment, or couldn’t support their children with online learning. 

As we all had to learn to have fellowship online and to work and study online, people among us were excluded from this.  So, we decided to do something about this. Together with Success4All, the education charity, who has been supporting our children & young people with tutoring, clubs, and summer schools for many years, we applied to All Churches Trust’s Hope Beyond Fund to be able to purchase laptops and train people in basic IT-skills.  Success4All developed the course which was accredited by AQA as a Skills Award in ICT Employability skills. 

Thanks to Hope Beyond, we managed to purchase 10 laptops and train 15 people in basic IT skills and working with Google Apps.   

Looking to the next steps to take, we are hoping to set up an IT-suite to further support our children & young people with their studies & learning opportunities and their parents with job coaching and training.

Read and hear some of their testimonies below