Aviva Community Fund has provided £432 of match funding
Community Digital Inclusion Hub for The Elderly
London, England, United Kingdom
Aim
The project aim is to set up a digital hub for the digitally excluded elderly, and the long term unemployed adults in the community.
Calm Minds-UK is a registered charity based in East London, from where we operate a community centre in Newham which allows us to offer free services and support to the most vulnerable, and others struggling to make a difference in their lives.
We work with an extraordinarily strong and trained team of volunteers who provides support tirelessly to many people in the community on various programmes, with a focus on mental health, well-being, and skills development.
We support many struggling individuals with various needs, including our ongoing programme of working with single parents to help them cope with their everyday challenges, the elderly, and the long term unemployed.
THE NEED WE’RE TRYING TO ADDRESS.
Currently we supporting a growing number of people with access to online services, mostly the elderly and refugees with low or no digital skills. Unfortunately, we only have 2 aged desk top computers being used to offer such services.
We are therefore seeking for a financial support of up to £10,000 to enable us to set up a fully facilitated IT support hub for the purposes of accommodating the elderly learners on our digital inclusion programme, and to improve on our digital support service for the long-term unemployed.
- The required funds will enable us to have the following in place.
- Hire extra learners/training room with socially distanced spaces.
- Purchase 8 more desk top computers
- Purchase 8 tablet and 3 smart phones for hand-held gargets training, which will enable us to meet the needs of disabled learners and the most digital shy learners.
- Pay out of pocket costs for support volunteers.
- Management overheads
THE CHANGES WE WANT TO MAKE (OUR OUTCOMES).
When given the opportunity, the proposed programme will very much improve our efforts to change the lives of many people in the community who are struggling to get online, and access most of the services which were switched to online access only during the lockdown.
We strongly believe that this proposed work will have a big impact on people’s lives as those who are often excluded and left out on most of the online services will be enabled to improve their lives by adopting online skills.
Other changes/outcomes will include the following:
Improved IT support systems, with the right tools in place
A great number of participants will be encouraged to use online tools in many areas of their lives, such as accessing public services online, overcoming loneliness by connecting with friends, relatives and getting involved in community-based activities digitally.
Long term changed attitude towards the use of internet: We also hope for long term benefits and a wide impact on people’s lives through this campaign. Many will be encouraged to share the achieved benefits with others, including changed attitude towards the use of internet to access services, the confidence gained and the number of vulnerable adults taking part will be celebrated.
Keeping people out of isolation: Through this project, a great number of our targeted beneficiaries will be helped to live an improved life, as their understanding of the world around them will change.
Gaining digital knowledge will get them out of isolation, will enable them to manage their lives and reduce dependence on others for basic services. Many vulnerable elderly and disabled people will be helped to increase their knowledge of online services and will be encouraged to enjoy the benefit of accessing basic services from the comfort of their homes using smart phones, and other electronic devices. The trained volunteers will equally benefit from this project as many will come to appreciate the benefit of helping others to improve their lives.
WHAT WE PLAN TO DO (OUR ACTIVITIES)
We plan to lunch a digital/online inclusion campaign in the community, reaching out for people, mostly the elderly, migrants, and refugees who are struggling to access services which were migrated on to online services only and many people finding themselves unable to access them.
The recent lockdown and the pandemic made the situation worse for people who were living an excluded life from the digital world, and as more and more basic services are being moved to the web.
We want to use this fund to set up a support hub at our centre which will provide us with the capacity to help people to become digitally and financially empowered. The move will enable many vulnerable people in the community to be more independent by acquiring digital skills which will improve their lives.
The support hub will provide an open access to the following:
- Provide Free access to online training and support using both drop-in sessions and home-based support.
- Help people with filling in online application forms
- Set up a support group clubs to tackle loneliness and isolation
- Peer-to-peer employment search and support skills development
- Mental health Matter’s discussion forums
This project successfully funded on 10th May 2022