Digital technology services have helped people stay socially connected to family, friends, and the community through the challenges of COVID-19.
But one group of people in our community struggle to take full advantage of these modern digital opportunities, and these are our elderly.
This is where The Place, a local community centre in Charlestown stepped in to help bridge the digital divide.
The organisation embarked on a Community and Intergenerational Digital Exchange program in July 2020, made possible through funding support from the Good Things Foundation as part of the Australian Government Be Connected Program.
The Place’s program, termed cDex and iDex aimed to train community members and local high school students to become digital mentors to their immediate and extended families, and neighbours bringing digital literacy learning and support safely into the community.
Centre Manager at The Place, Cristelle Govender said that pairing the younger generation’s understanding of digital technology with interpersonal training was the perfect way to ensure the elderly took away valuable digital literacy skills.
“We knew that young people generally have a good understanding of digital technology but perhaps lack the empathy, patience, and skills to teach it to older, less digitally savvy family members, especially grandparents,” Cristelle said.
“By training young people as digital mentors, we helped build their empathy, communication, and teaching skills. They in turn were equipped to take those skills and apply them to helping their families to learn the skills to engage online utilising the Be Connected resources.”
Over the last year, the program has trained 24 community members and 60 high school students to become Digital Mentors and they went on to support people over 50 in their family or community to build important digital skills.
In total, the new digital mentors invested 133 hours of their time training and supporting 82 community members. The outcomes of this program, however, extend to more than just digital literacy.
It provided opportunities for young people to connect with their families and build their own capacity as leaders.
“A lot of the time teenagers are seen as really clueless but through this program I felt helpful and important, like a leader!,” said one of the Digital Mentors.
Another participant said, “This program made it very rewarding to be able to help people stay connected especially in the times of COVID, overall, it was just a great experience that gave me a lot of skills to help other people.”
On Saturday, 5 June The Place celebrated the achievements of the digital mentors with an awards event acknowledging their positive work and involvement helping others and making a big difference in the community.
IMAGE | The Place: Charlestown Community Centre team with Digital Mentors awarded for their teaching efforts.