Decades of innovation and progress have rendered our world unrecognisable. Snail mail and telephones have been thrown aside in favour of smart devices and the world wide web. We’re infinitely more connected and contactable 24/7, and many of us feel are lives are richer for it. To those who came before this technological shift, however, the modern world feels completely alien.
“The way the world is now is like science fiction, it’s like the world of Blade Runner,” said Rick Crust, founder of digital inclusion project Hello Hackney. An early adopter of new technology, the 71-year-old began using early versions of the internet while he was working in the 1980s. Despite this head start, however, he still has reservations about the glorious new world of technology.
“I’m not a digital native”, he said. “I wasn’t brought up with it, but I’ve still been using it longer than most people I ever meet, so I have a distinct memory of the world before the internet and when it started and how it’s evolved. I’ve watched this develop with great interest and, recently, with great misgivings frankly.”
12 years ago he started a job at a local branch of Age Concern in Hackney. The charity set up a computer centre, hoping to teach older people about computers. “They didn’t really know what they were doing, looking back at it,” Rick admitted, “but at the time I thought this was quite forward thinking.”
That centre was shut down four years ago, but from it a new model of digital inclusion began evolving. For Rick, a revelation came when he realised that the elderly people coming to the drop-ins were there for more than just a crash course in email.
“The reason people were coming again and again over the years wasn’t always because they were interested in learning about digital technology, it wasn’t because they wanted to use a computer. They came for social reasons, they came because it was a social centre,” Rick explained.
“We had people from all walks of life, all different backgrounds and experiences. The one thing that we had in common, that held us together, was that nobody was a digital native, so everybody there was struggling with this technology as an older person and that actually created a common understanding between all of us.”
It was on this ethos that Hello Hackney was born. Running weekly drop-ins out of the Whitmore Community Centre, the project helps around 35 elderly people a week with everything from password resets to online banking. The focus is on repetitive learning, rather than a crash course, with many coming solely for a bit of brain training.
“A lot of older people will never get on top of the technology because it’s too difficult and it’s too strange and it doesn’t make sense to them. But also, your ability to learn things declines as you get older.”
“We take away that worry of retaining things that are really difficult to retain, as long as they can retain the idea [that there is a] place to go to where they can be with the computers and the technology as a community, they’ll be okay.”
But he is clear that there is no pressure for anyone to fully embrace the digital side of life. “Learning about digital technology is important for understanding the world we live in, we’re helping them learn how to do it but we’re also helping them understand that they shouldn’t ever feel that they have to do this. We’re trying to help people to try and stop being worried about it.”
For Rick, digital technology isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially when it comes to social media. “It is leading to social exclusion. People who spend all day staring at screens, their social interaction or relationships with the world around them have to be mediated through a screen rather than talking to a real person. That’s not an improvement in their lives, that’s a setback that actually creates social exclusion.”
The project has become so essential to the lives of the people who use it that Rick has found ways to keep it going even when they lost funding last year. Though run by volunteers, cash is still needed for equipment and renting the community space. Luckily, Rick has kept a positive outlook on the situation.
“I’m spending way too much time on getting donations and loans and things like that to keep it going, it’s a very difficult problem at the moment, but we’re not the only organisation confronted by this problem. It’s the way the world is at the moment.”
Thankfully, Hello Hackney has a team of eight regular volunteers, mainly older people, keeping the project afloat, as well as occasional corporate volunteers sent by City companies as part of social inclusion projects. Rick says their “youth and zeal” has been a huge asset to the project.
“All our older people like meeting these young people who work in the city, because it’s totally different to their lives.”
“In the last couple of years, I think we’ve had nearly 180 of those people. It’s a part of our strategy, it’s not just about getting these younger volunteers who are really enthusiastic about everything along, it’s that everybody learns from everybody else.”
Hello Hackney runs drop-in sessions for the over 50s every Friday 2-5pm at the Whitmore Community Centre. If you are interested in volunteering with Hello Hackney contact Rick: rick@hellohackney.net. For more information, visit: blog.hellohackney.net.
