17 April 2024
Giving residents the power to thrive
Giving residents the power to thrive
Residents have received a boost to their skills thanks to a special partnership which aims to help communities thrive.
Get Online Newcastle has been delivering a tablet course to a group of customers at the Cornerstone Community Centre, in Benwell.
The 12 customers were shown how to set up WhatsApp to contact their family and friends as well as how to use their tablets to access BorrowBox, their online library account to download free ebooks, audio books, magazines and newspapers.
It was all part of an initiative between Get Online Newcastle, Cornerstone and Newcastle City Council’s initiative Empowering People in the Communities (EPiC), which aims to help build community spirit.
Lisa King, of Get Online Newcastle, said: “Get Online Newcastle realises the importance of enabling groups of people in their local community to learn how to use tech to access and use the internet confidently and safely.
“This course was so successful because of the support from Cornerstone Community Centre and the Empowering People in the Communities, Newcastle City Council’s EPiC initiative.”
Amy Sturdy, Cornerstone operations manager, said: “We have immensely enjoyed having the Get Online Newcastle group at Cornerstone Benwell.
“The sessions were such good fun and the team loved to see how happy the learners were at the end of lesson, telling us how much they had learned and what a great environment it was.
“Through these sessions it has given us the opportunity to introduce new people to the work at Cornerstone and signpost to our other services.
“We are so happy to have made so many new friends.
“We would love to run sessions like this again in the future. Teaching people how to navigate the web and giving them access to the internet is so important as the world moves to become more virtual.”
Sarah Eaglestone, Community Safety Development Officer at Newcastle City Council, said: “It’s been a great opportunity to show how well partnership work goes.
“It has been amazing to see the difference in the learners from the first day they came into the session.
“I have enjoyed being an active part of the sessions and supporting learners not only with any queries they have with the course but also about things in their community and other issues EPiC can support them with outside of the sessions.
“Nine of the 12 attendees have signed up to attend further courses at Cornerstones.”