A special day of events is being organised next week to help more people in the Caerphilly County Borough area to realise the benefits of computers and discover the internet and get online.
‘Caerphilly’s Big Click’ will take place on Friday 20th May, to coincide with the ‘Digital Day’ of Adult Learners’ Week. The day will provide fun learning opportunities for people over the age of 16, through Information Technology (IT). For example, they may be using a computer or the internet for the first time and need help to take that step.
Events will be held at six community venues across the Caerphilly area between 10:00am and 3:00pm (apart from Markham): –
- Ael-Y-Bryn Community Centre, Rhymney
- White Rose Centre, New Tredegar
- Markham Primary School (1:00pm until 4:00pm)
- Siloh Community Centre, Ystrad Mynach
- Cross Keys Methodist Church
- Caerphilly Vistors Centre
On the same day, there will also be IT taster sessions at up to nineteen local libraries, as part of the ongoing BBC ‘First Click’ campaign, which is helping older people to get online.
Activities for the day are being planned by a partnership that consists of Communities First, Community Focused Schools, Care & Repair Caerphilly, Menter Iaith Sir Caerffili, Charter Housing, United Welsh Housing Association, GAVO and Caerphilly Library Service. The partnership is being co-ordinated by Communities 2.0, the Welsh Assembly Government’s digital inclusion programme.
Caerphilly’s Big Click will enable people to find out how they can save money on shopping and household bills by going online, keep in touch with friends and family, access jobs websites and boost their CV, keep people safe on the internet, learn more about digital photography and work out what ‘Facebook’, ‘tweets’ and ‘dot com’ all mean.
Matthew Lloyd is the Communities 2.0 representative for Caerphilly: “We’re already working with numerous community groups, voluntary organisations and social enterprises across the Caerphilly area, to help more people realise the benefits of getting online and make more use of digital technologies. Such activities are helping to reengage people with their communities, making people more employable and enterprises more sustainable. The digital inclusion agenda is also becoming increasingly relevant to local authorities, as more services are made available online – in time, it is anticipated that many public services will be exclusively available on the internet, which means people, without the necessary skills to engage with them, run the risk of exclusion.
Pat Jones, Agency Director for Care & Repair Caerphilly: “By using new technology older people no longer need to feel lonely or isolated, they can make new friends, keep in touch with relatives, shop online, keep up to date with what is happening in their local areas and most importantly be independent”.
A spokesperson for Caerphilly County Borough Council said, “We are delighted to be supporting this excellent initiative, which we hope will help more of our county borough’s residents to realise the benefits of computers, the internet and getting online in their day-to-day lives”.
For more information on Caerphilly’s Big Click, call 0845 474 8282 or visit www.caerphillysbigclick.org.uk. More information about Adult Learners’ Week can be found at www.yourfuturechoiceaction.org.uk.
