Edinburgh, October 2026: For New Scots attempting to settle, integrate and start new lives in Scotland, refurbished laptops provided by Reusing IT, via the charity Re-Act Scotland, are a lifeline.
When a group of friends in the Edinburgh area got together in 2015 to send donations to Syrian refugees, they didn’t imagine that within a few years they would be a registered charity providing essential services to a huge number of New Scots from a range of backgrounds.
“We were all musicians and artists, and none of us had the background or experience in this kind of thing,” explains Liz McArthur, board member at Re-Act: Refugee Action Scotland, the charity that they subsequently registered. But they wanted to help. They started out shipping donations to Europe, mostly to Calais where thousands of refugees were living in the infamous “Jungle” at that time. “We quickly realised that there was a much greater need than we’d realised.”
When refugees started arriving in the UK through the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme, the group set up collection days in Edinburgh where refugees could come and get essential items for everyday life, as well as running social and support groups.
Then Covid hit, and the need for help was greater than ever. Re-Act Refugee Action Scotland became a registered charity in 2020.
Reusing IT first became involved in response to the needs of refugee families who had children at school. Most had mobile phones, but they didn’t have computers on which to join online lessons, essential for home schooling during Covid. With a grant of money from Edinburgh University, Re-Act started procuring refurbished desktop computers from Reusing IT.
“Then we realised the families had no desks to put the computers on, or printers,” says Liz. “So we went down this rabbit hole of finding desks and printers for families. We had no idea what we were doing, but we muddled through!”
Home-schooling aside, not owning a desktop or laptop computer is a major barrier to refugees attempting to integrate here. Access to education, the job market, English language learning and most essential services depend on having a device and internet access. One of the first requirements for someone seeking asylum is to attend English language classes. Currently, the waiting list for classes at Edinburgh University is 18 months, so naturally people want to do online courses instead to try and expedite progress. For this alone, a laptop is essential.
To date, Reusing IT has supplied over 600 devices for Re-Act to distribute within their community. The recipients get to keep the laptops. Many are extremely isolated – socially, culturally and linguistically. With central Edinburgh accommodation for refugees saturated, the Home Office places them all over Scotland. They have no idea where they are going, where the nearest shop or mosque is. Without access to the internet they are very lost.
A number of the devices supplied by Reusing IT are directly helping to keep Young Unaccompanied Minors safe. Re-Act works with the Edinburgh Council refugee team to help support young refugees who are particularly in danger of being trafficked into modern slavery. It’s vital that they have access to a suitable device to help them communicate and learn.
While some of the groups that Re-Act supports, such as Gazans, are very keen on education for all, for others it’s a different picture. When the Afghan crisis erupted, and Afghan families started arriving in Scotland, Re-Act recognised a need for groups especially for the women and children. Culturally, education for women isn’t a priority for Afghans, and the men don’t tend to be involved in day to day childcare. So Re-Act has several projects aimed at helping women and children, running a playgroup, and helping with English language learning, CVs and job applications.
With a mixture of online and in-person support, the laptops are a lifeline for New Scots. “We depend heavily on funding and grants to enable us to procure the laptops,” says Liz. “And we have a great relationship with Ross and the team at Reusing IT. Stefan is one of the volunteers who looks after us and is absolutely amazing. We’d be pretty stuck without them.”
For more information on the work of Re-Act, visit www.re-act-scotland.org