The charity that gives computers – and people – a second chance

“At the time, I was without a job, and we said we wanted to do something to get people back into work,” he tells the JC.

That idea blossomed into 2econd Chance, a computer recycling organisation, which provides training to people with physical disabilities, learning difficulties, or social, emotional, and mental health needs. Last year, it became a registered charity.

“The best thing you can do for people is help them to work,” says Nigel, who, like Adam, is Jewish. Adam says that the trainees who are referred to them are often the “furthest [people] from the job market”.

Nigel Canin (Photo: Nigel Canin/LinkedIn)[Missing Credit]

Through a 12-week course, designed by the 2econd Chance staff, trainees gain skills and a qualification, which has recently been accredited by the British Computer Society.

“It’s also about expectations of how to act in the workplace – time management, social skills, how to dress,” Adam adds.

The charity is also environmentally friendly as the electrical parts avoid landfill for longer than expected, due to the laptops being refurbished.

Currently, 25 per cent of those laptops are then donated to the local community, which comes to around 60 each month. It’s a figure that Charlotte, whose role is to source computers, hopes to increase further.

“At the start, it was just me driving to people’s houses to pick up individual laptops,” she recalls. Now, five years on, they have struck up relationships with local businesses, who donate their entire inventory when they upgrade their hardware.

“We want to give more away, but that relies on getting more in,” she says. The rest of the laptops are sold at affordable second-hand rates, online and at local pop-up shops, with the money going back into the charity to fund the training places.

The donors of the laptops even benefit as 2econd Chance provides social impact reports to companies which can use them to demonstrate positive CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiative.

Recently, 2econd Chance was nominated for the Community Project of the Year award at the 2026 British Diversity Awards for their partnership with Scotiabank Europe.

Adam (L) helping out Peter, a trainee (photo: Ben Conway)[Missing Credit]

“Everybody uses computers, and companies only keep them for a certain amount of time, maybe three or four years,” explains 2econd Chance employee Avney, who has worked in IT for more than 25 years.

“Companies often have to pay another company to take them, whereas we offer free collections, plus data-wiping or crushing the hard drives, whatever their preference.”

On my visit to their facility in north-west London – which coincides with World Autism Acceptance Month – I am surprised by the size of the operation.

There are shelves stacked with hundreds, if not thousands, of old Dell, HP, and Lenovo laptops, rows of desks for trainees, and specialist equipment for taking apart the hardware.

In one room, I meet Mark and Simon, who co-teach the course. They’re overseeing seven or eight students, who each show me what they are working on.

James, who is two weeks away from completing the course, is fiddling intricately with a laptop’s motherboard.

Figuring out what is wrong with a laptop is not always a simple task. “A lot of the time we don’t know what the problems [with a laptop] are and we have to diagnose them,” says Simon.

Meanwhile, Kayden tells me he did some coding that morning, which he describes as “really fun”, and Abraham is installing a new operating system on three laptops simultaneously.

Dean is downloading updates onto another three, and David is working through a 14-point checklist, which all laptops go through before being cleared for sale or donation.

James demonstrates the crusher for me, a £1,200 piece of kit that destroys hard drives, and Mark shows me their compressor, which he says makes an “enormous difference” when cleaning dust and dirt from the laptops.

Meanwhile, I speak to Sherileen, who supports interns at Barnet and Southgate College, one of whom is doing the 2econd Chance qualification.

Mark posing with the compressor (photo: Ben Conway)[Missing Credit]

She commends the charity’s staff for “giving the interns the best possible chance to understand what the world of work is like, while still making reasonable adjustments”.

In another room, I spoke to Isobel, who maintains relationships with community stakeholders.

“What’s amazing about Barnet council is that they’re one of the few boroughs with a digital inclusion lead,” whose presence has helped the charity to network with local businesses which might be able to donate laptops, she says.

And in a third room, Debs is teaching two more trainees on their sister project, ReFramed, which helps people with mental health challenges to learn picture-framing skills.

In just five years, it is remarkable how the charity has grown from a conversation at a wedding to a well-organised operation, which processes thousands of laptops.

For Nigel, the most important part was providing people with an opportunity to forge their own path to employment.

“When people are in a charity, they tend to have that feeling of being served,” he says. “What I love about 2econd Chance is the approach where there’s responsibility and active participation for everyone who is involved.”

​The JC is the media partner of the Belonging Matters conference on April 27, exploring the inclusion of neurodivergent people in Jewish spaces. To book, go to theus.org.uk/belonging-matters-programme/or click here. 

To learn more about 2econd Chance, or to find out how to donate a laptop, click here.