Help older people learn basic IT skills

It has been a very busy start to 2015 with the usual increase in demand for classes after many older people received a gift of a computer from their families for Christmas.

 In Dublin we moved offices from the city centre to Inchicore in Dublin 8 and held an open day to show off our new computer classroom. We had over 130 people dropping in to take a look and we now have lots of classes up and running in our new venue. To make up for the loss of our city centre classroom we secured a room in Trinity College to run a number of classes there thanks to Trinity Foundation.

 In Galway we have sourced new venues in Clifden, Spiddal, Moorehall and Manorhamilton and the class in Spiddal will be through run Irish. A new project to provide IT training to housebound older people has also started in Dublin and Galway. Volunteers will visit people who are unable to attend classes in their local community and give them the opportunity to learn at home. 

 In Cork our regular venues are all up and running and we have created new partnerships with transition year students in Deerpark CBS, Gaelcholaiste Mhuire, St. Brogan’s Community School in Bandon and Kinsale Community School.

We have continued our successful partnership with Dell in Mahon and the older learners were offered a special treat at the last class when Anna Geary, the Cork Rose (of Tralee) presented them with their certificates.

EMC² also got involved in the programme tutoring older learners from Ballincollig ICA and one of the learners Jacqueline Cullinane baked a special computer cake as a thank you to all the wonderful employees who volunteered their time to tutor. 

We are all looking forward to a very busy sping time and helping lots more older people to get connected online. 

Links:

• http://www.ageaction.ie