How Digital Skills Can Connect Communities
In the North East, digital exclusion is higher than anywhere else in the country, this means that less people in this region have access to digital devices and often don’t have the basic skills to use them. Because the digital world impacts on all aspects of daily life, if you are excluded from it, it can negatively impact your daily life. Digital Voice’s mission is to improve this situation, one iPad at a time if necessary!
We understand the barriers to digital skills which is why we work closely with community partners to ensure that we are taking our inTouch courses to people who need it most.
Welcome to Gateshead’s Muslim Centre; this thriving community centre is committed to supporting the needs of Muslim people in Gateshead. Here, we worked with a group of women on basic digital skills, including navigating around an iPad, sending emails, taking photos and sending them, online shopping, online banking as well as online safety.
“Most of the women who come to the group, they have children, they’re trying to learn new skills, understand new things …connect with other people.”
- Mahbuba Haque, Digital Voice Tutor
One of the major barriers these women face is that English is their second language and within this one small group, there were four or five different mother tongues. Enter Google Translate. Knowing how to use this app on an ipad has helped to remove the barrier, allowing the women to engage more fully and enjoy themselves as well as opening up opportunities for them.
“When we introduced [the participant] to Google Translate … it meant she could explain so much more than she could explain previously …I could see that she was so happy that she could communicate with me and that I could understand what she was saying and I think that really helped her a lot.”
- Mahbuba Haque, Digital Voice Tutor
The impact is clear to see in the sessions themselves but it continues to be felt after the end of the course.
“This course has been very helpful, they learn a lot, even if they were frightened or scared to touch the iPad or the laptop but now they are very confident. So many ladies, after this course they went to college …one or two have started a job, working from home …so they are very overwhelmed and happy.”
- Afroz Qureshi, Trustee and Volunteer Community Development Worker
We’re delighted to be able to continue this work with the Muslim Centre later this year, thanks to funding from Connected Voice.
See the full film about the Muslim Centre’s experience here:
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