Age UK Norwich trustee and regular Age Space contributor – Pete Kelley, shares his thoughts on how IT training can help bridge the inter-generational divide!
I was thinking about bubblesโฆ how we all live in them. Itโs hard to avoid. How itโs good to get out occasionally.
Busting through bubbles isnโt always easy, but improving mutual understanding seems to be key to sorting out a lot of things, right now.
Maybe one of the big divides – and Iโve talked about this before – is inter-generational.
The young and the old sometimes look at each-other as if they lived on different planets. Though, ironically, in our experience, when they get talking, they find they have a lot in commonโฆ not least because teenagers and the elderly can, at times, feel theyโre ignored by the generation in-between.
Thatโs not a bad place to start.
The โourโ I mentioned there is Age UK Norwich, the city-based charity working with the elderly which I support. And in recent years weโve increasingly been tackling the needs of our older citizens by working with the youngโฆ from primary school age upwards, including a good many UEA and City College students whoโve come on board. Everyone enjoys the relationships formed
In a great bit of synergy – youngsters from the cityโs Jane Austen College have agreed to help older people understand their computers by volunteering to give IT training.
Come along to Cafรฉ Pure in St Georgeโs Street, Norwich on Wednesday afternoons between 3.30pm and 5pm. Bring your device – be it tablet, laptop of smart phone – if itโs portable enough. But if not, come anyway. Have a relaxed chat over a cuppa with the students about things youโd like to understand, or new things youโd like to learn to do digitallyโฆ perhaps email, perhaps sending pictures.
Recently, a gentleman popped along asking for advice about broadband speed, as his was slow at home. The students showed him how to check, and also explore other providers.
Iโm told the students are also keen to help people trace family trees online, if thatโs your interest.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that an older person in possession of a computer must be in want of a teenagerโs advice. See what I did there?
If your parents need support getting out and about, Age UK Norwich have a befriending project and and local charity Door to Door run a reasonably priced, safe and experienced mini bus service.