A SCHEME aiming to get older and vulnerable people in Westbury without internet access online, to combat loneliness and improve mental health, has received a £3,700 boost.
The Westbury Area Board’s health and wellbeing group’s grant application to the board for its digital literacy connectivity project was unanimously approved by all members.
Graeme Morrison told the meeting the newly formed health and wellbeing group had its first meeting on January 19th.
“We had a good session where we spoke about the aims and objectives of the group.
“We had a network session where everybody had a say about the work they do in the community and how they engage with the group and how they felt they could help us work towards the objectives of the group. which are to improve access to services for older vulnerable people, improve the general health of older and vulnerable people in the community and to reduce social isolation and loneliness.”
Graeme said the main bulk of the meeting was about the digital literacy connectivity project.
“We are looking to identify 30 people within the community who are in that older and more vulnerable category (generally aged 55 plus) who have no internet connectivity and provide them with a device, whether that be a laptop or a tablet and to help them get online and provide them with training so they know how to use the device and things like Microsoft Teams and email and to access services like banking, shopping and doctor’s appointments.
“The crucial thing is we are looking to identify people who want to be part of the programme – we don’t want to identify people who are not really interested otherwise it’s a bit of a waste.”
Face-to-face training sessions would be provided for free when it is safe to do so by volunteers from Reading-based AbilityNet who have volunteers around Wiltshire.
Graeme explained the group was also seeking to identify another 30 older and vulnerable people who have a laptop, tablet or smart phone that they don’t really know how to use.
He informed members they had successfully applied for five laptops via the Wiltshire Digital Drive so they were ready to go. and they needed funds to provide people with an internet data package on a dongle or laptop so they do not have to have WiFi in their house.
Cllr Gordon King said, “I’m very excited about this because it ticks all three of the boxes of the objectives. It’s an extremely worthy venture.”
Presenting the grant application later in the meeting, cllr King said, “This is a significant and worthy initiative of the health and wellbeing group.”
