Get On Board To Get Online

You've got to get on board to get online ? that's the message from Age Concern and Britain's leading online bank, Barclays who announced  they have joined forces to deliver innovative IT learning opportunities to older people and their carers. This will be made possible through Computer Explorers, four buses kitted out with the latest IT equipment and specialist IT training sessions.

Barclays is investing over £600,000, through its community investment programme, into the three year partnership and the initiatives delivered are part of the Web Aware campaign.

Over a thousand people are expected to use each bus over the next three years. All four buses will be adapted for wheelchair access and fitted with special equipment for ease of use by older people and their carers.

Barclays support will also help Age Concern to run four new portable IT sessions. Mobile computer equipment will be taken into day centres, residential care homes and sheltered housing to enable frail and isolated older people to access the internet.

The partnership programme will help to bring some of the advantages of web access to older people who would normally be excluded. In this respect it will help to promote social inclusion which is of growing importance as older people are among the most socially isolated members of society. Some 3.5 million pensioners are living alone with friends and family no longer living close by. The same is true of many older people's carers who have the full responsibility of looking after them and often miss out on leisure and learning opportunities.

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