Seniors get their email in order with help from volunteers….
On Friday March 14, at the Downtown Senior Center in San Francisco, CTN ran the first Internet Workshop for Seniors of 2014. The event marked the launch of a new program aimed at engaging skilled volunteers from the city’s many tech companies to help seniors better utilize computers and the Internet. The first company to step up to the challenge was Practice Fusion, a business in the e-health sector.
Five fabulous folk from Practice Fusion volunteered as part of “Phenomenal Friday” — a company initiative designed to engage employees in philanthropic activity. They worked with a total of seven seniors who needed help with their email accounts. Inevitably, a range of other questions came up, and volunteers addressed lots of queries, including how to use Skype and how to enter online competitions!
Feedback from volunteers at such events is always useful, and the principal takeaway from this event was how frustrating it can be to set up a brand new email account. As a result, CTN will be looking more closely at how this process can be made easier for seniors so they can enjoy the many benefits of email.
The seniors and the volunteers gave overwhelmingly positive views of the event, and CTN will be taking the program forward with another event with the company Kanjoya on April 24, 2014, at the Curry Senior Center in San Francisco from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p .m. If you know a senior who needs help understanding how to use email and could attend this event, contact lorna@ctnbayarea.org
This program is delivered with support from the SF City & County Department for Aging and Adult Services Practice. Support also comes from the San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation, a 501(c)(6) organization set up to leverage the collective power of the tech sector as a force for civic action in San Francisco. Visit sf.citi for more information.
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