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03.01.2024 ·  Peter Bernscherer  ·  Share on Facebook  ·  Share on X (Twitter)

The year 2023 with PCs für alle

Vienna, Austria, Greece, Iraq, Lesbos, Ukraine, the USA and all the rest

The year 2023 began with the auction a Ferrari. More precisely: a Ferrari donated to us for this purpose Acer Ferrari 3000 Laptop, decorated with the Cavallino Rampante – the Ferrari horse – was auctioned twice. The first time, this laptop fetched 420 euros. The winner of the auction then decided that the sum anyway! Art workshops for children with disabilities one of the initiatives that PCs für alle featured in last year's Advent calendar. The winner immediately donated the laptop, allowing us to auction this beautiful device a second time.

This year, one of all SK Rapid Vienna signed jersey for auctionHurry up! Not only do you have the chance to bid on the jersey until January 02.01.2023, 14, at 00:XNUMX PM, but the winner will also choose which initiative featured in this year's Advent calendar will be supported with the money.

And the year continued excitingly

In June, Austria saw the end of official COVID measures. The surge in Home schooling, Digital learning and Home office continues unabated, and the demand for appropriate hardware is correspondingly high. The distribution of notebooks and tablets to all fifth-grade students initiated by the Ministry of Education will not change this. By the end of 2023, PCs für alle total over 23.000 people supplied with computers and other hardware. Just imagine, over 23,000 people! That makes us a little proud, or rather satisfied, but it doesn't let us pause, because the need continues to grow.

Approximately 22% of all children and young people under 18, approximately 360.000, live in poverty or are at risk of poverty [1] and, as things currently stand, the numbers are continuing to rise.

All this only works because of the great Willingness to donate of people, organizations and initiatives and through cooperation with many partners. As an example of many others, Caritas and the people's aid called, who pass on our devices to those in need, make them available for use in their own facilities, organize transport, etc. etc.

PCs für alle goes international

The support for Ukrainian children, young people and adults - both the refugees here in Austria, as well as the support of schools and youth centers directly in the Ukraine itself - was further expanded. Here are just a few examples:

Dr. Michael Fazekas provided for the SECI initiative of 29 OSCE states schools in Kharkiv and Kherson looted by the occupiers with 450 complete systems, printers, and IT accessories. The Upper Austrian organization SUNUA[2] delivered another 150 of PCs für alle refurbished complete systems to Dnipro, where the local NGO Global 22[3]  set up computer classes in the youth centers of the city near the front. The Vienna Mission for Ukraine (vm4u)[1], consisting of members of the international community in Vienna, 20 complete PC systems were acquired for two libraries in Lviv (Lemberg) in western Ukraine.

Of course, that's not all. PCS for All also supports other countries as best as possible. Refugee Aid Doro Blancke[5] set up a computer room near the refugee camp Mavrovouni in the NGO Community Center Parea on the Greek island of LesbosWe provided the necessary hardware and accessories.

This year, the encounter with the Brazilian Ambassador to Vienna[6], Mr. Nelson Antonio Tabajara de Oliveira and the support of the embassy, from which we received computers and peripherals that we no longer needed. We were very pleased that the association PCs für alle received a medal during the visit – our first medal, so to speak. 

In November this year we were visited by the Doctors of Peace[7], which operates a school in Iraq, among other places. Mediated by Joe Höllwarth (Tyrol), who has already delivered several computers from PCs für alle to Iraq, we equipped this school with the necessary IT equipment.

We were surprised by the Embassy of the USA[8] in Vienna. After we were thoroughly examined and thoroughly tested by embassy staff and ultimately deemed "good," the embassy honored us with a hardware donation. https://www.pcsfueralle.at/aktuelles/us-embassy-219

Media? Media!

We are very pleased that the activities of PCs für alle received a lot of media attention. A highlight was the ORF-Broadcast “Home of great daughters and sons”[9] www.pcsfueralle.at/aktuelles/HeimatORF-229 in which Peter Bernscherer and the club were portrayed.

This kind of attention helps us to continue to raise awareness of our cause, reach out to those in need of support, and gain supporters.

Finally…

… it is urgently time to warmly Thank You To say thank you to the many companies, organizations, educational institutions, clubs, and countless private individuals who lent us their no longer needed computers, monitors, cell phones, etc., or donated money this year, thus helping us. Without this ongoing, tremendous support, it wouldn't be possible.

Finally, I would like to thank the great team at PCs für allewho invests their free time in the association and those who need support. Thank you for collecting computer donations, cleaning, repairing and reinstalling devices, coordinating the allocation, and through many other things PCs für alle keep it going.

Yours, Peter Bernscherer

[1] Poverty Report Statistics Austria, published on 20 April 2022 – EU-SILC: https://www.statistik.at/fileadmin/pages/338/Tabellenband_EUSILC_2022.pdf (accessed on December 28.12.2023, 25.04.2024, the next report will be published on April XNUMX, XNUMX)

[2] https://www.suunow-ua.com/ (accessed on 31.12.2023)

[3] https://globa22.org.ua/en/home/ (accessed on 31.12.2023)
 

[4] https://vm4u.org/ (accessed on 31.12.2023)

[5] https://doroblancke.at/ (accessed December 31.12.2023, XNUMX)

[6] https://www.gov.br/mre/en?set_language=en (accessed December 31.12.2023, XNUMX)

[7] https://www.doctorsofpeace.org/ [accessed 31.12.2023]

[8] https://at.usembassy.gov/de/ (accessed December 31.12.2023, XNUMX)

[9] https://tv.orf.at/program/orf2/heimatgros106.html (accessed December 31.12.2023, XNUMX)