By Jennifer Glansford | National Manager, Getting Started Programme
In Ireland, Covid-19 restrictions began in mid March and as a result, our Getting Started one to one classes for older people which were running in communities nationwide in Digital Literacy had to be cancelled. At the time, we had over 500 older people signed up for classes with volunteer one to one computer tutors to encourage people to bridge the digital divide and learn about the benefits of being online.
Never has it been so important for older people to be online than during this current Covid-19 pandemic. Older people are more isolated than ever and the benefits of online communications and information is of primary focus right now.
We immediately went about adapting our very successful Getting Started Programme into the following:
Age Actions’ Getting Started KIT supports older people to keep in touch with their loved ones during the Covid-19 pandemic. We all are feeling the effects of social distancing, and older people are particularly impacted being asked to cocoon at home. Now it is more important than ever to keep in touch with family and friends so Age Action drew on our Getting Started programme which offered face to face digital skills classes, to create easy How To Guides.
The Getting Started KIT is made up of seven How To guides that will support older people to learn, use, and be confident using smartphones and applications.
We are providing one to one remote tutoring for people who were signed up for Getting Started classes. We are doing this with the assistance of over 400 amazing volunteers who are going to teach their learner over the phone or over vide calling, once they can get their learner to that point.
We have produced our GS KIT which is available to the public also and we will post out the GS KIT to anyone around the country so that they can potentially teach themselves with the clear step by step guides.
See below for link to all our guides and an outline of some of the other benefits of Getting Started Keep In Touch Programme.
Links:
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