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Digital communities | Civic Europe
Social inclusion, Youth participation and empowerment

Digital communities

The community at the service of closing the digital gap of young people and their families.

Creators

Who is behind this?

Irene Kopetz

Fundacio Privada Gentis

http://www.gentis.org

Spain

Idea

Idea pitch

“Digital Communities” is a community based project located in the rural region of Terres de l’Ebre (Spain) focused on closing the digital gap in daily day administrative activities among disadvantaged youngsters and families by using community based resources for improving learning and competences and equal access to resources. The project will create a network of key community supporters and materials to promote digital inclusive practices whilst improving social cohesion.

Where will your project idea take place?

5 rural municipalities from the Terres de l’Ebre region (South of Catalonia, Spain)

What is the specific societal challenge faced by this region?

New technologies are an indispensable tool in our daily lives: they facilitate access to information, promote efficiency and sociability, but are also a factor of social exclusion and inequality, especially among vulnerable groups. They create a gap between those who have access to them and those who don’t. Many households in the region do not have neither access to suitable electronic devices nor access to quality online training. Very few of them provide spaces that guarantee the necessary online study habits of young people. As a result of all these shortcomings few families are able to manage electronic daily day transactions such as making an administrative generic request, requesting an appointment at the health center or to process social or educational aid to reduce inequalities

Who are you doing it for?

The digital gap due to confinement, telework and social distancing has exponentially increased during the Covid pandemic.Vulnerable citizens are and will still be requested to manage daily activities electronically and through technological and computer devices. Our project aims to support young people and families to keep up with all these changes but also to provide them with training and facilitate access to such resources.
Target groups: 1) young people at risk of social exclusion, aged 16-24 that are engaged in the Adult Training center “Lo Pont” managed by Gentis. Many have difficult family contexts, special education needs (20%), intellectual disabilities (20%) or lack literacy skills (non-accompanied migrants 30%) 2) their families as main household managers and providers.

How do you plan to get there?

1. Analysis (M 1-4)
- Selection of community professionals and volunteers.
- Programming and activities
- Selection of participants and families
-Access to digital devices
- Technical requirements of the project and trainings.
- Analysis of expectations and needs of participants.

2. Execution (M 5-11)
Trainings in digital skills focused on 5 thematic areas based on the previous analysis of needs:
Module 0: Needs detection
Module 1: Office tools and free software
Module 2: Training tools and virtual school education
Module 3: Resources for accessing online labor resources
Module 4: Daily day virtual activities
Module 5: Family and ICT

3. Development of supporting material in the different thematic areas for target groups but also to be accessed online by anyone (M 2-10)

4. Establishment of a continuous communication and monitoring Telegram channel, for bringing together facilitators, community agents and the target group, to share knowledge, doubts and resources (M 3-12)

5. Evaluation phase (M1-12)
- Evaluation of training performance.
- Evaluation of the training experience according to the participants (satisfaction and proposals for improvement).
- Issuance of training certificates.
- Assessment of the impact on families and the community.

6. Dissemination (M1-12) social media, radio, meetings, conference

What are the expected results?

Results: 1) Minimum of 75 young people and families trained from 5 municipalities 2) Development and dissemination of Supporting materials 3) Dissemination Conference (70 participants) 4) creation of a new network of socially responsible public and private entities with a focus on bridging the digital gap.
Impact:
On the youngsters and their families: improvement of competences, professional networks and community outreach. Increase of employability opportunities. De-stigmatization through normalization of cultural daily day activities and their visibility.
On the involved entities: increase of knowledge, capacity and implementation of inclusion and social responsibility processes.
On the community: Improved coexistence and social cohesion.

How does your idea strengthen active citizenship at a local and community level?

Families and young people with limited knowledge to key community resources (institutions, policies and processes) that affect their daily lives and that now are mostly available online will be trained to access them using digital means, thus improving their social participation.
Public and private actors providers of key community information will be socially engaged –by actively participating in the training modules facilitated by trainers from Gentis, and being available to provide regular information and support- in aiming to improve the quality of life of those most disadvantaged and will gain awareness of their needs for future policies and programs.

Why is this idea important to you?

Gentis has expertise developing educative resources to improve technical, social and emotional competences focussing on socio-labour inclusion of people at risk. It uses a person- centred and decentralized approach that takes into consideration the optimization of the limited resources present in a context of rurality. Gentis has strong links with local and regional administrations and entities in the Terres de l’Ebre Region and is a point of reference for external services and the public administration to contact and have access to disadvantaged groups .All this expertise will be applied to structure trainings and community involvement initiatives in the fields of digital competences and inclusion. Our team: project manager, 1 content developer, 2 trainers and community facilitators.

€ 33700,-

Total budget

€ 33700,-

Funding requested from Civic Europe

Major expenses

Personnel costs: =21.000 €
Office expenses: 3000€
ICT materials for target groups: 5000€
Communication and dissemination= 4500 €
Travel =200€

What do you need from the Civic Europe community?

We would like to gather feedback on practical implementation of knowledge transfer from the community (what works, what does not) to complement our knowledge in this field and innovative ways to reach out and involve the community in social initiatives.

Team

irenekopetz

Idea created on April 25, 2021
Last edit on April 26, 2021

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