Dignified: The West Silvertown Way

We recently had the pleasure of visiting West Silvertown Foundation, a digital inclusion hub for the National Device Bank. Hubs provide the invaluable link to beneficiaries, who receive devices and connectivity through digital inclusion, and much, much more. This is their story.

Ask what West Silvertown Foundation does and you'd better take a long breath.

Toddler groups. English classes. A food pantry. A kitchen for people whose accommodation doesn't have one. Free clothes, donated essentials, days out. Celebrations that span many cultures and faiths. Advice on everything from housing to finding work. And, quietly alongside all of it, a steady supply of phones and SIM cards that help people get online.

My Reconome colleagues Billy Maker, Thea Karavasili-Campbell and I spent time with the team, with Nida Zakaria, the Foundation's Community Development Manager, very kindly showing us around. Here's what we saw.

A digital inclusion hub, and so much more

West Silvertown Foundation is a resident-led charity in Newham, East London, founded in 1995. It describes itself as the only charity serving the whole West Silvertown community, and its mission fits in a line: creating space to belong.

Digital inclusion is one thread in a much bigger weave. A typical month looks like this:

• Stay and Play. Taking place four days a week, where families with young children come together. 26 families strong when we visited.
• The pantry. A cost-friendly mini market, open every Thursday, consisting of supermarket items the Foundation has purchased or been provided with, from fresh food to household essentials and cosmetics, each priced in tokens.
• Bring and Swap. On the first Thursday of each month, clothes, toys, nappies, appliances and other essentials are donated and taken, freely.
• Free clothes for anyone who needs them.
• English classes for asylum seekers.
• Job-seeking advocacy for people looking for work.
• A winter cooking kitchen, where people are given a budget to buy food and cook it themselves, so they can eat something closer to their own cuisine and culture. Many are living in hotels with no kitchen of their own.
• A community hub with classes, books and advice, including a Thursday drop-in for form filling, paperwork and fuel fund help, with energy vouchers and SIM cards on hand when possible. They also signpost to local organisations on things like housing.
• Frequent trips out for community members to various locations around London and the South East.
• Celebrations across many cultures and faiths, from Diwali to Christmas carols on the green.
• Youth services consisting of clubs, mentoring and youth development opportunities.

Then look at who that list serves. Babies and toddlers. Parents. Young people. Adults learning English. Neighbours who can't stretch the week's money far enough. Families of every shape, culture and background. The Foundation is there when someone doesn't know where to start.

The scale is real. In 2025, the Foundation supported 1,813 different people. 80 volunteers gave nearly 1,500 hours. 198 households used the pantry and saved more than £40,000 between them. None of it is guaranteed. The team works incredibly hard to find funding from private and public sources, in a constant and very challenging uphill battle to keep serving their community.

Where the National Device Bank fits

The National Device Bank, run by Good Things Foundation in partnership with Reconome, provides laptops, phones and tablets to people in digital poverty. Reconome collects, wipes, refurbishes and rehomes devices through the programme. From there, the devices go out through community hubs: trusted local organisations that join the National Digital Inclusion Network, apply for devices, and hand them to people that need them. West Silvertown Foundation is one of those hubs.

What it felt like to walk in

The word we kept coming back to was dignified.

Many of the staff and volunteers have used these services themselves, creating an environment of understanding, a culture of giving back, and neighbourly support.

Every family type, every culture, every kind of struggle and background had a door that fitted. Nobody had to squeeze themselves into a single programme to be helped.

In the pantry, we were introduced to a member of the team who had previously needed the Foundation's help herself. Now she's part of the team that gives it, describing how the people she worked with and supported were what motivated her to join.

Staff and volunteers alike work incredibly hard, are unbelievably committed to the Foundation and its cause, and do it all with a smile on their faces. Every single one of them was inspirational. And through all of it, they were warm and welcoming to us in the most hospitable way.

They do it because they really care. This incredibly important service would simply not exist without the care, effort and time their team gives it, week after week.

It was a touching, moving and humbling experience. It's a day that will stay with our team for a very long time.

This is what your surplus IT can do. Get in touch at rethink@recono.me.

Our way of saying thank you

Delivering the impact that Reconome does, we’re often asked for individual help with devices, and we’re always on hand to signpost people to local partners and organisations that can offer it.

Reconome is built to deliver these outcomes at scale in partnership with our customers, so we unfortunately can’t serve individual cases in this way, but we make sure to guide and advise so that everyone has a route to accessing what they need.

After visiting West Silvertown Foundation, and hearing about the devices their staff were using to look after their community and beneficiaries, we decided to make an exception, and gave the team a device package of iPads and a smartphone so they can continue the great work they are doing. A small thank you, to a team that made a big impression on us.