STJG: Supporting education – enabling online presence

A major focus area of the MARGARETE MÜLLER-BULL FOUNDATION has taken on special importance due to the current situation with the Covid-19 crisis: access for all to education and knowledge.

Traditionally, we use our resources to fund local and global projects aimed at enabling and securing this access. The imposition of bans on contact and gatherings as a result of the pandemic proclaimed in March this year led to a sudden spike in demand for hardware and software to continue being able to take part in schooling and training via video conferences and online learning platforms. Companies usually have this equipment, or sufficient resources to buy it if necessary. The situation is far different in the case of school-goers and students. The Stuttgart Jugendhaus Gesellschaft STJG therefore launched a campaign to help disadvantaged school-goers. Supported by the mayor for youth and education Isabel Fezer as patroness, the campaign aims to promote equal opportunities.

Laptops, tablets, smartphones: “make do and mend” is the slogan of the campaign in which volunteers from the Stuttgart youth centre collect donated equipment from its old owners and give it to the new owners fully reconditioned and for free. The campaign is in tune with our core remit of providing humanitarian aid. As the foundation was currently unable to donate any old equipment, we made a financial donation to the Stuttgart Jugendhaus Gesellschaft. The cheque was presented to Benjamin Beslic, head of project coordination for SILKY (laptops for children and young people in need, and holiday camps for refugees in Stuttgart), and Ingo-Felix Meier, the managing director of the Stuttgart Jugendhaus Gesellschaft.