How to overcome digital exclusion

Building digital confidence

 

GTF’s 2021 report, called Shocks, knocks and building blocks, calls on charities to equip people with soft skills such as motivating them to use digital and build their confidence.

 

The report said that local charities are “often best placed to help people build confidence and learn digital skills simultaneously”. Many are already taking action, both before the pandemic and more recently to ensure communities are not being left behind.

 

GTF cited the work of Sheffield community hub Learn for Life Enterprises, which supports the city’s Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community, including refugees and asylum seekers. It offers a range of IT and computer courses to tackle digital exclusion. 

 

“Learning is informal, flexible and social,” said GTF of the support Learn for Life Enterprises offers. This includes offering a class in the morning, socialising over lunch, and access to digital resources in the afternoon.

 

“Learners who first arrived at the centre with low digital skills have progressed through the resources and now act as volunteers to support other people,” said GTF. “The relaxed setting of Learn for Life means volunteers help in whatever capacity they are needed; often, they have themselves experienced some of the challenges new learners are facing.”

 

 

Tackling the digital divide in education

 

Charities are also stepping in to support disadvantaged pupils to learn at home.

 

Earlier in 2021, sustainable electronics charity The Restart Project launched a campaign in London to mobilise donations of laptops and volunteers with digital skills, so that unused devices can be used by students.

 

The charity created a “virtual help-desk” for community projects across the capital to allocate “challenging repair” work to Restart’s volunteers.

 

“Our goal is to repair and ready 240 laptops for use by students in need, and to donate any funds not used for spare parts or transport to reuse organisations in our London network,” said The Restart Project.

 

Charities are also stepping up their lobbying of government to call for further help to tackle digital exclusion among children.

 

In 2021, charities linked up with MPs to urge ministers to ensure all children have access to technology at home. The Sutton Trust and Child Poverty Action Group were among those taking part in the campaign, alongside MPs including Labour’s Siobhan McDonagh.

 

 

Small charities are particularly important to combating digital exclusion, according to A report published by the Lloyds Bank Foundation earlier this year called The Value of Small in a Big Crisis.

 

This points to the value small charities can offer in combining offline and online support. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic “smaller charities were seeking to mitigate digital exclusion by calling or visiting the people they knew weren’t online”.

 

It also stressing the need for charities to make better use of online support, but not in a way that exacerbates digital exclusion.