Digital Volunteer Training launches at WLM ST Lukes

Apr 30, 2023

Well, well, well, this is something we have been waiting for quite a while.  We have finally delivered our in-person Digital Volunteer Training courtesy of our hosts WLM St Lukes.

A cohort of sixteen people attended the first of 4 monthly sessions exploring the challenges, discussing approaches and looking at some of the techniques we have developed to support people in this area.

These techniques have allowed us to work with over 500 different people in 2022 alone across a range of different projects.

Our person-centred approach puts the learner or resident right in front of the tech. We explore subjects such as active listening, demonstrating vs instructing and, crucial to our approach, how NOT to be the expert and developing helpful interactions.

This sounds all good and proper when you put it like this but fundamentally, we sit with people and work things out with them.

A mixture of existing volunteers, other groups and community connectors all joined to share their experiences which is what really makes the content rich and becomes a learning tool for all involved.

There are still places available for the next session and we will be running the whole course at different locations over the next two years so please get in touch if you’d like to register or are interested in running this for your volunteers.

Help for Household event opens its doors

Apr 30, 2023

We recently held our Help for Households event in partnership with the Upper Norwood Library Hub, and over 60 people attended a range of stalls, activities and health support.

We wanted to bring local residents and groups together under one roof in a social and equitable way, sharing food and learning something new.

Its easy to look at barriers and obstacles in hard times and anything that can soften and open relationships scan only be a good thing.

Being quite honest, we have been to too many ‘community events’ over the last ear with the same faces and too few residents. We really wanted to break that deadlock and have some fun.

Very many thanking you to Laura and It’s a Playground, Kim and the Norwood Forum, Sue at Invisible Palace, Danny and the Hive Choir, Kemi at the Paxton Green Timebank and Zen Laughter Yoga.

We are also strongly supported by the fantastic Lambeth Together Health & Wellbeing Bus as well as the South West London ICS

Can’t wait for the next one

A UK Emergency Alerts test is announced

Mar 26, 2023

The UK Government has announced a test, on St Georges Day (23rd April), of their Emergency Alert system which will be broadcast across all 4G and 5G smart phones across the UK simultaneously. This may be an emotive subject for many and already we have received several different examples of misleading or unverified ‘facts’ about this system and about the timing of it.

We thought it was important to prepare a clear breakdown of the facts as we know them now and will update if this changes in anyway.

During an alert our phones will either make a loud siren like noise for several seconds, even if our volume is turned down, it may vibrate or even read out the alert if the phone is set as such.

It is being transmitted to all phones that are running on 4G and 5G within a designated area, so isn’t targeting individual phone numbers, no information is being shared and does not operate over WIFI. It is something that has been in planning for over a decade and does exist in many other countries.

On face value, there are potential benefits for such a system to exist, however this will only work if we are aware of what t is when it happens and that it is then not corrupted by scammers and fraudsters.

This is likely to cause alarm for many people without this fair warning who may think something is wrong with their phone, their number has been shared with the authorities or even cause a panic.

There also is risk of re-traumatization and safeguarding concerns have been raised for victims of domestic violence or modern day slavery who may have a secondary phone for safety purposes. If the alert goes off it could identify it’s existence to the abuser.

The biggest immediate concern  we have for the people we work with is that the wording around the alerts could be used by scammers who replicate this via text or WhatsApp and encourage people to click on a link, call back a fraudulent number and pass over personal details.

With this in mind we actually welcome the test. It could be a good way for groups to receive and learn from the genuine alert and then be watchful for similar messages in the future and be better able to fact check.

We’re back at WLM St Lukes!

Mar 16, 2023

WLM ST Lukes is a little haven tucked away in Kennington. Their neighbourhood skills hub has a real focus on both financial and digital inclusion; helping local residents build their own resilience to these challeneges.

Pre-Covid it was the home of the Lambeth Digi-Buddy project which helped many people across the Borough. It is a true honour to pick up where this project left off.

Last year we delivered several of our Community Learning courses in partnership with WLM, we worked alongside the Norwood & Brixton Foodbank to provide Cost of Living support as well as supported several local residents in the home via our connections with local housing groups.

We will now be delivering a weekly Digital Drop-In every Thursday 2pm-4pm providing a space where you can come along and get questions answered, problems solved or practice on a supported environment from a member of staff or volunteer.

After Easter we will also be launching a full Spring programme including digital life skills workshops and digital volunteer training, so watch this space.

We are always looking for volunteers and you if you are interest then please get in touch. We are not looking for super technical people, just someone who can listen, be patient and help someone find their way through a challenge. Is this you?

We will be there every Thursday 2pm – 4pm
25A Wincott Street, Kennington, London SE11 4NT
Get Directions

Digital Volunteer training is finally underway

Mar 1, 2023

It was great to finally get our volunteer training programme underway. A great morning was spent exploring the challenges and barriers people face accessing or learning ‘digital stuff’

We also looked at active listening, setting boundaries, safer spaces as well as understanding motivation.

Good grounding to work either as a Digital Volunteer or within any community group as the skills are both universal and useful.

We will be developing our programme further throughout the year offering this to volunteer, community groups and partners

Keep ‘em peeled!

 

Could you get more from Google?

Feb 12, 2023

Many of us use Gmail as our email address or have a smart phone set up to use Play services and download apps from there, but it is not always clear that these are both part of the same Google account. 

There are many other features we can use and access within this account, such as creating playlists and uploading video to YouTube, creating letters and budgets with both Google Docs and Google Sheets.  

We can also manage our search history, have all of our contacts in a single place as well as create calendar alerts and invites but is can also be a bit confusing when we don’t know how it all works together and may also be affected but things we hear about privacy and the cloud. 

Getting more from Google is designed to make this clearer for you and to help you choose what right for you and to help you be safer online and enjoy more things. 

We are now taking registrations for 2 cohorts of this 6-week course: 

Thornton Heath Library 

Mondays 2pm-4pm from the 27th February 

Anerley Town Hall 

Wednesdays 2pm-4pm from the 1st March 

More information and how to apply can be found here or email us here.