News

Social enterprise reduces social isolation

Club Soda is run by a group of people with learning disabilities who produce exciting arts events for others with learning disabilities to reduce social isolation and increase participation. They recently ran their own 'Pop Tent' at the Croydon Festival in Lloyd Park.
 
Media Trust's Community Voices project closely supported Club Soda to develop a media team of people with learning disabilities to publicise community events that are suitable for others with learning disabilities.  The media team was at the Croydon Festival creating a film about it to publicise it to others with learning disabilities. They've just completed six weeks of film training specifically for this event.
 
Community Voices aims to inspire, engage and support disadvantaged and isolated communities across England to make a meaningful difference to their lives with the help of digital media.
 
'The training means I can make films and show other what we do. I want to get a job doing this full-time now!' Christine Chua, 26, Club Soda member from Croydon.

Club Soda Crew took on the whole gamut of roles and responsibilities on the day; from running the lighting and sounds desks, MC-ing, performing, stage management, filming, stewarding and selling Club Soda merchandise.

'It was brilliant seeing thousands of people enjoying what we had made. There was a brilliant atmosphere. Can we do it again now?' Terry Smith,  35, Club Soda member from Croydon.

Club Soda Crew members are all ages 16+ and come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Some of the team are barely out of college, others are in part-time employment and some do not work. Club Soda gives some of the members access to training that they cannot find anywhere else. Some members want to work in the arts sector full time and find paid work, others get enjoyment and satisfaction simply from being involved in a really inclusive and dynamic arts enterprise. It is the wonderful diversity of the crew members and their individual talents that makes Club Soda such a unique and stimulating project to work on for everyone.

Oliver Tipper, who runs Club Soda said: 'Club Soda's inspirational new Media Crew is central to what Club Soda is all about; producing groundbreaking arts and media work that engages the widest range of people possible whilst having the interests of people with learning disabilities at its heart. This summer the Media Crew are producing a film about Club Soda starring everyone involved in this unique social enterprise as well as people who come across Club Soda for the first time at this year’s Croydon Summer Festival.'
 
If you are interested in getting involved with Club Soda, as a mentor or volunteer, get in touch online at www.clubsoda.org.uk or call 020 8253 1034.

The Twitter community is in mourning after one of its most famous members died in her sleep. 104-year-old Ivy Bean hit the headlines for being the social network's oldest tweeter. She used twitter on a regular basis, talking about her daily activities, what she'd had for dinner, and thanking people for the gifts that she received. When she didn’t tweet her followers would get worried. Read the full story at the Community Voices blog...

In her latest blog post, Breaking social isolation with digital media, Community Outreach Manager Kim Townsend writes that digital media can be a wonderful antidote to social isolation and disadvantage.

'A great case in point is the digital media project that residents in care at the National Society for Epilepsy's Chalfont Centre are doing,' writes Kim.

'In their funding application to us they explained that many of the residents can't read and write and therefore can't access information about what is going on in the local community. Many of them have lived at the centre for years and have never ventured further than the front gate. They are incredibly isolated because of their disabilities.

So they decided to put that right, and some of the residents are going to be making a monthly film-based newsletter highlighting local events and services. This solves the literacy problem, gives people confidence to try new things (because they can see them on film first), and will hopefully break the social isolation that they face.'

Read the post in full at the Community Voices blog

Want to set up a website for your charity or community group, but don't know where to start?  BT's free Community Web Kit could help.

In just a few simple steps you can create an easy-to-build web site to help promote your charity or community group. It's a straightforward to set-up and maintain. And once it's up and running, it provides an easy way to publicise your group and stay in touch with people.

Find out more at the BT Community Web Kit site

Better Net Awards

UnLtd is partnering with the Nominet Trust to deliver the Better Net Awards, a unique programme to support and develop entrepreneurs who want to test an Internet-based idea to create social change. Up to £5,000 is available to individuals living in the UK who want to develop Internet-based solutions to the problems that affect our society.

Criteria:
To be eligible for an Award, you must have an original and innovative project that meets at least one of the following themes:

• Increases education about the Internet & Information Technology
• Promotes and addresses online safety
• Provides an Internet based solution to social, educational, health and environmental issues
• Increases digital inclusion and the use of new media for a social purpose

For more information on the Better Net Awards, please email Ana at analialemmo@unltg.org.uk

Community Radio Toolkit

The Community Radio Toolkit is a great place for anyone interested in or involved in community radio to share their skills, knowledge and opinions.

The Toolkit has a resource area full of useful documents and a features section covering special community radio.

You can also submit content to the site that'll be available to others users. Head over to communityradiotoolkit.net and sign up to get full use of the forums, competitions and FAQs.

The eXpress Factor!

Global Cool is running a very cool competition for young filmmakers with presenting talents that offers to take them on the trip of a lifetime. The winning filmmaker will receive a pair of InterRail passes for a month-long trip around the whole of Europe. The prize also includes a one-on-one session with a top talent manager for some essential presenting tips and a Flip UltraHD Pocket Camcorder to make their Traincation film.

Find out how to enter the competition and watch celebrities in their own Traincations for inspiration at the Global Cool website.

The competition runs until 26th April 2010.

Help connect offline adults with Online basics

Online basics is a free course designed to help thousands of offline adults take their first steps with computers and the internet.

Available free of charge at www.onlinebasics.co.uk, it offers five key modules covering the basics people need to know to get going online – from keyboard and mouse skills through to email, internet searching and how to stay safe on the internet. Alongside these modules, the site also provides access to guidance for people helping someone to use the course, such as tutors in learning centres or family and friends supporting someone at home. In this way, Online basics is open to everyone.

The course has been created as part of the Government's response to Estelle Morris' Review of ICT User Skills, published in June. The report recommended a single channel to help the 15 million offline adults in the UK get to grips with technology and BIS, Becta and UK online centres have developed Online basics as a response.

Millions invested to create new wave of silver surfers

Nearly 20,000 people living in sheltered housing will be switched on to the internet under £2.9m plans being developed by the Government to boost the number of silver surfers Communities Minister Lord McKenzie and Minister for Pensions and the Ageing Society Angela Eagle announced today.

With two thirds of those over the age of 65 in sheltered housing without online access, the new ‘Get Digital’ programme will help them become internet savvy and enjoy the wider social and economic benefits of the digital world.

‘Get Digital’ – to be delivered on the Government’s behalf by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) and Digital Unite - will provide these people with access to computers and the training they need to make the most of the new technology on offer. Local schools will also link up with sheltered housing schemes so that young and old can learn together.

Digital Unite’s experience on previous programmes suggests that learning digital skills can transform the lives of older people in sheltered housing, bringing residents together as they discover new shared interests and passions.

Alongside the huge social benefits, more and more services are going online so the new programme will mean that the thousands in sheltered housing are not isolated and left behind.

By the end of March 2011, Get Digital will:

• work with 195 sheltered housing schemes nationwide, including 81 schemes in rural areas providing around 7,800 residents internet access;
• extend internet access to a further 300 schemes and up to 20,000 residents in total;
• develop communal IT facilities in sheltered housing schemes making technology easily accessible to the 600,000 people who live in sheltered housing as well as others in the local community;
• provide resources including expert Scheme Support tutors to boost computer literacy. Fear of fraud and online jargon are cited as barriers to older people going online. The training on offer will increase their confidence using the web;
• promote and support ‘Get Digital partnerships’ between sheltered housing and local schools and other groups of young people for ‘intergenerational learning activities’. This work is intended to develop greater trust between younger and older people and it is hoped that this will lead to a decrease in fear of young people in a neighbourhood – something acknowledged to be a main source of insecurity for older people; and
• provide a wide range of support materials for Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) to enable them to set up and sustain facilities for residents. This will include advice and guidance on appropriate equipment and connectivity, free training and resources for residents, extensive advice and guidance on working with local organisations to sustain digital literacy activities and Small grants to set up communal PC facilities.

Lord McKenzie said:

“For thousands of people this programme could be truly life changing. Older people who currently don’t have access to the internet miss out on the benefits that millions of us enjoy everyday.

“Technology has changed so fast that it has left many over 50s feeling left behind. This programme is about bridging the digital divide. A little training will make going online a possibility for everyone. The internet will make it easier for people to keep in touch with their families, shop online and access a wide range of services.”

Angela Eagle, Minister for Pensions and the Ageing Society said:

"Digital Services are an increasingly important part of our society.  Get Digital will help thousands of older people in sheltered accommodation and rural areas become part of the digital age.

"The project will work alongside the digital inclusion taskforce helping older people benefit from internet access and a new national network of digital mentors to give them the skills and confidence to use the internet safely and effectively."

The Get Digital programme has the capacity to transform individual and collective lives. It will build on the successful work in this area already delivered by Get Digital partners, illustrated by feedback from scheme managers in Somerset, Bristol and Buckinghamshire (2009):

“The digital literacy programme for residents has helped transform the atmosphere at this scheme.  There is always someone using the computers and people passing by the door stop to chat and then get interested in what the residents are up to and sometimes offer to help if they're stuck.

“I believe it has enhanced the quality of life for those who took part. We invited other supported housing residents (members of our Sheltered Housing Group) to an open day this year to evaluate the project and the feedback was positive.”

“One of the best comments I have had from my most keen user is that it has been life changing.”

The cross-government initiative is part of the ongoing drive to tackle social and digital exclusion and will involve close working with housing organisations to both improve their delivery of housing services as well as improving the lives of the older and vulnerable people in their care.

Martha Lane Fox, Champion for Digital Inclusion said:

“More than 10 million adults across the UK have never used the internet, and worryingly 4 million of this group are also socially excluded.  Of this group 39% are over the age of 65 and missing out on the many opportunities and cost efficiencies that the web has to offer.


“The 'Get Digital' project will give older people in sheltered housing the skills to fully participate in modern technology and it's exactly the right approach to make sure one of the most digitally excluded groups are not left behind.”

From our blog: Norfolk and Suffolk

I’ve just come back from an outreach visit in Norfolk and Suffolk. Again, some very rural and beautiful places but very isolated too.

One group I went to see had really used this isolation to their advantage. They live in a beautiful cottage in a tiny village and have made one of their out buildings into a studio. They’ve been running media weekends away for children in care. They do all sorts of things with them from song writing, to film making. And it gives the children a break from their care homes. The finished media products are incredibly moving and you can tell the children have got an awful lot out of the experience.

I also went to see a new community centre in Thetford. There, children finish school at 2pm! I’m not sure how the parents manage to hold down a job and pick up their children from school at that time – but apparently the result is lots of kids hanging around with nothing to do in the afternoons.

The new community centre hopes to give them something constructive to do, like media courses, and to stop them hanging around the streets. From the short time I was there I could see there was a real need for that.

From our blog: Gordon Brown to help poor families get online

The Guardian is reporting today that Gordon Brown has pledged £300 million to give poor families a free laptop and broadband. He wants 270,00 low income families to be able to follow their childrens’ progress at school – online.

He says, “We want every family to become a broadband family, and we want every home linked to a school”.

Read the full article here http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/11/gordon-brown-free-laptops-broadband

I wonder whether this funding is going to come with free training in how to use the laptop and the internet? Giving people access to the technology is definitely a big step – but I think giving them the skills in how to use it is vital if this initiative is going to work.

I also wonder how he will address the problems that many low income families in rural areas have with actually accessing broadband because of connectivity problems – broadband isn’t accessible to the whole of the UK by any means.

Finland recently became the first country to make broadband access a legal right for all – would Gordon Brown have been better going down this route?

What do you think?

From our blog: Happy New Year!

I know this is very late in coming – after being on leave over Christmas I feel like I may have neglected this blog a bit too much!

How were your Christmas breaks? My Christmas was full of inspiring digital media stories I have to say! I spent it with my family in rural North Shropshire and my mum is one of those people who until recently had never really been on the internet and didn’t really see the point. Her life was fine without it.

That was until she started wanting to build her family tree and then she realised that the internet could be a very useful tool for her. So she started using the internet every once in a while.

This year unfortunately, my Mum was diagnosed with cancer, and the chemotherapy that she is having means that she has to avoid being in public places too much in case she catches any illnesses. So this posed a big problem with the Christmas shopping.

Mum eventually came up with the idea that she was going to do all of her Christmas shopping online. She’d never done it before and didn’t really know how it worked but it seemed like the only sensible solution without asking everyone else to run around the shops for her.

So I got lots of phone calls in the run up to Christmas asking me which website she should buy a digital camera from for my Dad – and did they have a good returns policy – and would her card details be safe – and how long would it take to arrive. etc etc.

Eventually all the shopping was done. And on Christmas Day I opened my presents to find she’d bought me a lovely pair of pyjamas from Marks and Spencers online!

I think that’s a wonderful example of how digital media has helped someone overcome isolation and disadvantage and I’m very proud of my Mum for working it all out!

If you have any inspiring digital media stories like this please do add them to the comments below – we would love to read them.