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GRCC's Digital Support Projects - a round-up for Digital Week

A hundred years after our founding, GRCC still does some of the same work that we did in the 1920s, such as supporting village halls and community organisations, but now some of the help that we provide has a strong 21st century flavour. 

As part of the EU All Digital Week, here’s a round-up of the digital support that GRCC now gives to organisations and individuals in Gloucestershire.

Much of our Digital work comes under our DAISI Project , led by Daniel Gale.  ‘DAISI’ stands for Digital Accessibility, Inclusion, Support and Innovation. 

This involves supporting community organisations to use digital technology to deliver their services, and helping them to give training, support, and equipment to people who are finding themselves on the wrong side of the ‘digital divide’ due to their age, disability, location, financial hardship and other reasons.    It’s a big task!

One strand of this is our work providing laptops to community projects and people in need, via our link-up with a Gloucestershire charity which collects good used laptops from companies and refurbishes them (there is another news item all about this). 

Of course, just providing equipment isn’t enough by itself to stop people from being excluded from the digital economy and digital services.  

People frequently need help to learn the necessary skills, and need support while they navigate a new world where jobs, education, housing, and benefits can often only be applied for online.   

GRCC is playing a major part in a new County Council funded project to set up community digital support hubs across Gloucestershire.   GRCC is the lead partner in this project for the Cheltenham and the Cotswold districts,  which make up about a third of the county.   The first of over twenty GRCC supported community digital hubs has just got off the ground in Cheltenham, in partnership with Cheltenham Borough Homes.   You can see more about this in the one-minute YouTube video below.

But for some people, the barrier to digital access is neither the lack of a usable device, nor a lack of digital skills, but simply financial hardship in a time of massive increases in the cost of living.   Paying for a mobile phone contract that has a sufficient data allowance to be able to use a smartphone for access to online education and essential services can be expensive, and when there isn’t enough money to cover food, heating, and necessary transport, there’s often no money to cover mobile bills either.  

Wouldn’t it be great if we could just give free mobile access to people who are in financial hardship?  That’s exactly what GRCC is doing.  We have obtained £500,000 worth of calls and data for disadvantaged people in Gloucestershire, in the form of several thousand Vodafone SIM cards that give free calls, texts and data for six months. When we ran a survey on digital exclusion, we found that the cost of mobile contracts and top-ups was the biggest issue that people wanted help with, so we approached several mobile networks, and were delighted to be given huge support by the Vodafone Foundation. Here's a very short YouTube video about this:

We are distributing the SIM cards through food banks, social housing providers, warm spaces, mental health support services and other groups.  Do get in touch with us if you work with people who are in data poverty, and we will be delighted to provide help.

We can’t cover all of GRCC’s digital work in detail in one news item, so here’s a brief mention of some of the other strands of our digital inclusion work: 

·        We run a regular survey of digital exclusion in Gloucestershire 

·        We have run the largest digital job club in the South West

·        We have run training for digitally excluded groups – web design for the visually impaired, for example

·        We have helped to source adapted software and hardware for disabled IT users – e.g. necessary software to enable a brain injured bookkeeper get back to work

·        We help VCS organisations with advice on digital services, digital security, and reducing IT costs by using opensource software where appropriate

·        We help organisations produce accessible online information, and documents in accessible formats

·        We organize a network of charities and community organisations to arrange digital training, capacity building, and improve digital access for their users or client groups.

For more information, to discuss any needs your organisation has, or to join us in reducing digital exclusion in Gloucestershire, please contact us via digital@grcc.org.uk or 01452 528491

Posted by Peter R on April 28th 2023

Contact Info

Gloucestershire Rural Community Council
Community House
15 College Green
Gloucester GL1 2LZ

T: 01452 528491

GRCC is a registered charity (number 1054282) and a Limited Company (number 3181755).

Quick Links

"You have provided me with much encouragement, guidance and invaluable advice in the past 18 months; your input and support has been invaluable, something I very much appreciate, thank you."

"Thank you so much for all the support and advice that GRCC has provided."

"Your resource was highlighted to us by the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations, as an excellent example of sharing expertise/resources.  My huge thanks for this work, which has made it far easier for us to address policy needs here!"

"With my other Parish Councillor hat on - can I just say how incredible GRCC have been in supporting the parish in the last few months - we couldn't have got half as far as we have without you."

"GRCC has made learning iPad skills fun and easy. Just by sitting at my side and showing me the basics, Matthew has encouraged me and this in turn has made me want to learn more and more.  Thank you GRCC, you got me started."

"Thank you so much for your time yesterday, I found it really helpful and supportive. You have a fantastic depth of knowledge and experience, and it was great to have an ‘external view’ and insight.   I will put all the ideas into practice and will let you know how I get on."  (Glos Charity CEO)

"Thank you so much for your email yesterday...it really cheered me up. My Mum always said kindness costs nothing, and you and your colleagues have been so generous, and it was not expected... I understand you will be closing the case, but I would like to say, you have been a marvellous help to me." (Part of a thank you message from a Social Prescribing client).

"Could I please thank you both for making me so welcome at the Cheltenham and Cotswolds Know Your Patch meetings.  They are really well set up and organised, such a great forum to connect with people and services across the county to link in and work together. "  

"My social prescriber has been truly warm, understanding, helpful, non-judgemental and has even made me laugh despite my current situation. I have very much enjoyed our conversations. I'd strongly encourage anyone to try the service.”

I would like to thank Laura at GRCC for the provision of a number of Job Clubs in and around our communities.  I have witnessed first-hand the positive impact that Laura has had on our customers and the communities that we serve. It has been great to work in partnership with GRCC, and I look forward to working closely over the coming months and years.  (Feedback from Bromford Housing for our ESHO job clubs.)

I was looking for a job after taking a long career break. Laura played a crucial role in helping me navigate my return to work....  Laura's unwavering support during our weekly meetings kept me motivated to keep applying. Finally, I landed a job as a Business Administrator for a reputable organization. I am immensely grateful to Laura and the Job Club.   (Feedback for our ESHO job clubs from a client).

"Quite some years ago now ... I undertook skilled (Surface Water Catchment) Flood Warden training. That training was one of the most valuable educational experiences of my life.  ... This email is intended to express my appreciation, for the unique skills that GRCC Officers gave me."

Dear Cara (GRCC's Affordable Housing Manager) - I just wanted to drop you a line to thank you very much for attending last night's meeting at our Parish Council.  The Councillors and some audience members who stayed to the end of the meeting expressed how good it was – appreciating how thorough and clear the talk was and in particular how well you answered the many varied questions and knew the subject so well.  We hope you achieved what you had hoped for from the meeting too and look forward to working with you.

"Lauren Woods, who was with the The North Cotswolds Community Wellbeing Services, supported me to solve some problems - they boiled down to digital challenges.  Recently she has joined Tewkesbury Borough as their Digital & Technology Navigator.  I could write a screed on how useful she was...   I am glad she hasn't left the organisation...  You have an asset there."

"Good afternoon Cara [GRCC's Affordable Housing Manager]Many thanks for giving of your time last night to present the GRCC’s survey on housing need. Your presentation was well received and certainly contributed to a successful meeting on which we hope the PC can build in future."

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