My e-Pal: Fostering digital volunteerism in the elderly

We aimed to address and secure the rights of the elderly in the 21st century and foster their digital literacy via interaction with young volunteers. The following needs were addressed. − Increase digital skills in the elderly: It is important to teach new abilities a generation that is not familiar with new technologies and faces danger of being digitally excluded. Thus, we aimed to decrease inequality within and across generations, aligned with UN global sustainability objectives. − Enhance the mentoring skills of youth workers and young volunteers: This way we can better assist senior adults in being digitally included. By providing youngsters with new educational materials and skills, they become the digital mentors of seniors. − Build and spread good practices among the community: It is important to spread successful models and build a community based on good practices to improve social life. Stakeholders gained valuable experience in strengthening the communities to grow and adapt. − Enhance the capacity of the partner organisations: The training and the tools constructed, as will be reused and farther adapted. Partners were involved at the 1st Erasmus+ project and enhanced their staff capacity.

The main objectives of our project was to meliorate the professional skills and competences of young volunteers, improve the life standards and the well-being of the end-users (seniors 60+), which was worsened due to the lockdown and the uncertainty of the pandemic and enhance the senior learners' digital soft skills.Also, we aimed to raise awareness about the significance of well-being and active ageing, upgrade the portfolios of education institutions, via the use of innovative digital training material that cover all aspects of life and provide young people with the opportunity to become active in the community and engage with vulnerable and excluded groups, while in parallel minimising the intergenerational gap.

Our projects implemented three activities. − The 1st was “Project Management” to ensure smooth project coordination. We endured continues coordination and risk management plan, adequate supervision of implementation and finances, evaluation of activities and quality measures, consistent promotion and enhanced communication between partners with regular online meetings and a project management committee. − The 2nd was “Community Supporter’s Handbook”, a training guide developed by the partners and the volunteers. Young volunteers were involved in the process of developing a new curriculum for interacting with seniors via digital skills training. This process provided participants with critical thinking, competences and professional skills, team spirit, and taught them how to become active in a community level and engage with vulnerable/excluded groups. − − The 3rd was “Community-based Interventions”, between volunteers and seniors. The sessions minimized the intergenerational gap and increased intergenerational interaction. Seniors exchanged knowledge and learned from soft digital skills from youngsters while shared their experiences. Seniors also learned ways to improve life standards and well-being for achieving active ageing.

The foreseen outcomes of the project were all reached. 1) A public Community Supporter's Handbook for improving senior adults’ IT skills. 2) Workshops with 20 young volunteers, to collectively develop and evaluate the Handbook. Two volunteered to train and deliver the content to seniors. 3) Community-based Interventions between volunteers and senior at care homes. The interventions were designed and delivered by youth workers and volunteers. 4) During the Community-based Interventions, two case studies were selected and served as Role Models for extensive evaluation of the interventions. 5) Promotional and sustainability actions were implemented following a specific strategy. The project logo, website and Facebook page were created and published new and updates during the project implementation. Three newsletters (translated in French and Bulgarian), one leaflet and two e-articles were published in social media and online platforms. 6) All activities received a quality evaluation by all participants at three different timepoints and the feedback received was summarized in a final quality and evaluation report. 7) Stable managerial and financial control was secured throughout the project by the project coordinator.