A COMMUNITY group that offers disadvantaged people a stepping stone into education and employment is celebrating the launch of its media lab.

The Owton Fens Community Association (OFCA) has unveiled the equipment, which includes IT systems, design and website-building software and digital printing and photography facilities, as part of a project to provide a range of media services in Hartlepool.

OFCA provides resources and support to underprivileged people and to community and volunteer organisations in the town, which is in an area ranked last year as the eighth most deprived in Britain and it suffers from high levels of unemployment.

Technology firm Hewlett Packard (HP) donated thousands of pounds worth of equipment to OFCA, and Huw Robson, digital media manager of the company's Bristol research laboratories, was in Hartlepool to open the lab.

"What you have in this community is an absolutely stunning and unique facility. I have seen nothing like it, and we at HP do a lot of work in a lot of communities around the UK," he said.

"I have a strong suspicion that it will be replicated when you have got something as unique and thoughtful as this project.

"Hopefully, it will become a template for other community groups in other parts of the country."