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The young and the old sometimes look at each-other as if they lived on different planets!

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 bubblesโ€ฆ how we all live in them. Itโ€™s hard to avoid. How itโ€™s good to get out occasionally.

Busting through bubbles isnโ€™t 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 Iโ€™ve 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 commonโ€ฆ not least because teenagers and the elderly can, at times, feel theyโ€™re ignored by the generation in-between.

Thatโ€™s not a bad place to start.

The โ€˜ourโ€™ I mentioned there is Age UK Norwich, the city-based charity working with the elderly which I support. And in recent years weโ€™ve increasingly been tackling the needs of our older citizens by working with the youngโ€ฆ from primary school age upwards, including a good many UEA and City College students whoโ€˜ve come on board. Everyone enjoys the relationships formed

Age UK Norwich Logo smaller png version

In a great bit of synergy – youngsters from the cityโ€™s 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 Georgeโ€™s Street, Norwich on Wednesday afternoons between 3.30pm and 5pm. Bring your device – be it tablet, laptop of smart phone – if itโ€™s portable enough. But if not, come anyway. Have a relaxed chat over a cuppa with the students about things youโ€˜d like to understand, or new things youโ€™d like to learn to do digitallyโ€ฆ perhaps email, perhaps sending pictures.

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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.

Iโ€™m told the students are also keen to help people trace family trees online, if thatโ€™s your interest.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an older person in possession of a computer must be in want of a teenagerโ€˜s 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.

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