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The lockdown imposed across all the countries of the world is putting emphasis on the key role of digital tools to allow us all to work, learn, get services and interact keeping a social distance. Vulnerable groups are among those mostly affected by the Coronavirus outbreak. Organisations working in the field of social inclusion are striving to find new, alternative ways to support vulnerable people at a distance, in a context where everybody knows that when the sanitary emergence is over, we will have to deal with an economic crisis bringing higher rates of unemployment, social exclusion and poverty.
How can organisations involved in the support of vulnerable groups cope with this situation?This is a very challenging topic as many organisations that serve socially vulnerable groups had to adjust very fast in the new conditions and staff were not well prepared for the abrupt changes. The rise in unemployment will be another challenge for developing new digital skills.
The European Commission page has collected a selection of online resources and tools for learners, teachers and educators during the outbreak of COVID-19. It can be accessed by clicking here: https://ec.europa.eu/education/resources-and-tools/coronavirus-online-learning-resources_en.
Hope it is useful!Adaptability is a key issue, I reckon. On the other hand, the current pandemic situation generates, to a lesser or a higher degree, a new two-fold reality, where professionals need, all of a sudden, to tackle effectively and fast with a new digitally centred situation in their service provision; as such, they might be in the same risk for digital exclusion as their service recipients are..
Indeed! for this reason it is useful to have a look at the bottom up and top down initiatives taken at EU and national level to support citizens in their digital inclusion, for any possible scope (work, learning, access to services and products). One Digital provides a set of interesting tools to make digital accessible to everyone, these might be especially useful now: see https://onedigitaluk.com/knowledge-hub/developing-a-digital-champion-project/digital-inclusion/
That’s very useful. Thank you! I will go through it to identify also the digital divides that MEDICI needs to tackle.
I agree, Remos, adaptability is really crucial here, which is a part of building resilience. I hope that after this crisis, there will be more attention to that aspect and many organisations will look at the mechanisms that will help them to become more resilient- to recover from the failure and adapt to the new reality.
I think that initiatives from EC are a great starting point for organizations to improve digital inclusion, more in this situation, when tecnologies are one of the main options to continue working and learning. In my opinion, the main role of organizations is landing the initiatives from European and international institutions to national, regional and local realities in order to obtain the maximun benefit from them, it is, reach users and adapt the inititives to the different needs.
I agree with you. It is a big challenge and it is import to be able to adapt interventions to local realities and needs and to various populations within localities. There are so many different aspects we need to consider from access to internet to training professionals, researchers and practitioners.
Dear all, I wish to share with you a very interesting e-mail that Aimilia Markouizou-Gica, a member of our knowledge community shared with me. It’s worth reading it and sharing your opinion.
“ Dear Anna Tsiboukli,
Thank you for the chance to take part in this forum! Actually, I am coming out from a long meeting and tele-work session concerning different ways of using technology into our work in prevention with students, teachers, parents and school agencies within school communities. It is a real challenge to move our whole work on the web, develop new tools and ways to run small and large groups in a ICT environment. I believe the first and main shift is the shift of mindset- namely,to believe that coronavirus is here to stay and as a result believe that using efficient and good enough ways to reach people who are mostly in need can be done on internet as well as in vivo situations. In reality, we should develop multi- identities, or rather expand our present identity to contain our “digital presence and status”.Of course, our work requires both support on an ICT level from our organizations as well as from institutional/state decisions, i.e. offer free or low-cost internet connections to households mostly in need, give students of low-income families a PC or a tablet.-our job is to push towards this direction/ demand from the crucial stakeholders to act accordingly. The shift to a digital society to meet 21 century’s requirements and also to safeguard continuus functioning during social distancing or periods of quarantine can take place with a lot of support on a personal, institutional,material, cognitive, emotional, informational, and executive level. Pandemics and ther physical disasters are here to stay- our primary goal as mental health professionals is to be prepared for them and act promptly and efficiently, protecting both ourselves and the people we have chosen to serve, and together reach higher levels of diversity and complexity.Eleni Vratsini also sent the following message for joining the discussion. These issues are crucial for reaching socially vulnerable groups and closing digital gaps
“Dear colleagues,
in my opinion, I think that the digital inclusion of socially vulnerable groups requires first the possess of medias such as computers and the capability of them to use the internet, after the training that they may had. It is important to preserve this inclusion in action and not only to train the vulnerable groups in order to know how it works.”We must hear what people say themselves about their priorities…
This is the story of Maria, a trainee in the third age, who participated in an E-Literacy Program for Old People of Larissa- Learning City:
“The computer learning program helped us first of all to get into the new way of life that doesn’t leave you in isolation, because it gives you the opportunity to participate actively and be more useful to yourself first of all. You learn, your spirit opens, see things that you didn’t know. For example, when you surf on the internet you see cultures from other countries, you communicate with new friends. I could never have imagined that I would be home and see my girlfriend sitting in her house, drinking coffee or talking on Facebook, solving problems, expressing our opinion freely, having a step into society, because it is very important to engage in a public discussion without having to move and get tired. Also in this difficult situation of quarantine because of the corona-virus, it was very important to see your children and grandchildren via the internet, to be able to make your purchases and payments online. It is a great satisfaction to learn at this age. In other words, I believe that this program at this time, to the people who attended it, has given a great joy, has given confidence, has given life. At this difficult situation it seems as the best thing for me, it was a gift from God.”
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