By Age Action Ireland | Head of Fundraising
Over the last two years, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Age Action was able to continue to deliver digital literacy training programmes remotely through the development of our Getting Started KIT (Keep In Touch) programme, which was vital when our traditional face-to-face Getting Started programme could not continue due to restrictions.
The Getting Started KIT programme enabled any person over the age of 50 anywhere in Ireland to gain the digital literacy skills they needed to stay connected throughout the pandemic by accessing remote digital literacy tutoring, over the phone initially and moving to video calls at a later stage as part of the 5 hour training programme. This progamme was very successful and expanded the reach of our digital literacy training by enabling anyone to access the training manuals at our website www.ageaction.ie and video tutorials on our youtube channel. Volunteers were also able to provide one-to-one tutoring to learners regardless of their location, which really broke down barriers to engagement.
Now that Covid-19 restrictions have lessened and venues are reopening, most of our digital literacy learners are keen to go back to the face-to-face training model, and we were delighted to be able to reopen in venues across Ireland from early 2022. The face-to-face Getting Started training programme has been succesful in training over 43,000 older people in Ireland to gain essential digital literacy skills since 2011 and offers 10 hours training over 5 sessions in the local community.
Age Action will now continue to offer the choice of both in-person or remote digital literacy training to our older learners, to ensure this programme is accesible to as many older people as possible.
At present, 65% of over 65s in Ireland feel they experience digital exclusion as a direct result of having low digital literacy skills, or in some cases none, and also issues with access to devices and broadband. This is of concern to us, particularly with many public services and public health services moving online since Covid-19.
This year, as we mark 30 years of providing advocacy, programmes, and services to older people in Ireland, Age Action wants to be able to continue to offer increased and specialised digital literacy tutoring supports to older people across Ireland through our programmes. Our advocacy focus, which underpins everything we do, will continue to raise awareness of the ongoing challenges faced by older people in accesing information and services online, as well as championing for older people to be able to have the choice to access information and services offline if they so wish.
Thank you for your interest and valued support for our work. We hope you will continue to support us this year and if you would like further infrmation, please contact me at headoffundraising@ageaction.ie
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