Online skills to become accessible with Lottery £5,800,000

24 Sep 2014 01:13 PM

The Big Lottery Fund is awarding £5.8m to support people across the UK with sight or hearing impairments to gain basic online skills and confidence in using technology in their everyday lives. The funding has been awarded to RNIB’s (Royal National Institute of Blind People) Online Today! project which will work with 37 national and local partners in 195 local authority areas across the UK. This is the first award from a £15m programme to support digital inclusion 

RNIB aims to engage with a million people and raise their awareness of the range of equipment and assistive programmes that can help to make technology accessible to people with sight or hearing loss. Support will be provided through existing networks, surgeries and a dedicated advice line.

 Existing and new volunteers will be trained as a technology support squad and beneficiaries will act as digital champions to share skills and benefits through peer networks. Online Today! will enable 125,000 people with sensory loss to develop online skills and confidence to get and stay online through face to face training.

The three year project will bring together an unprecedented number of voluntary, private and public sector partners, sharing expertise to reach, engage and empower those people with sensory loss who are digitally excluded and marginalised from mainstream services. Beneficiaries will gain the confidence to access online systems for government support, help with day to day tasks such as shopping and paying bills while those of working age will gain IT skills that will help them move closer to employment.

Big Lottery Fund Chief Executive, Dawn Austwick, said: “Being confident online can bring opportunities as well as make life easier for people, particularly those that have an added barrier such as sensory loss. This is why it is important that the Online Today! project will offer a tailored approach according to people’s needs including one to one advice and the use of mobile resources and home visits to accommodate those who are homebound or in rural areas.”

RNIB's CEO, Lesley-Anne Alexander CBE said: "We are absolutely delighted to have secured this grant from the Big Lottery Fund for our Online Today! project which will make a huge difference to so many people throughout the UK.

“The internet and new technology is an increasingly important part of modern life and for people who have sight or hearing loss, being able to get online confidently can make a real difference to being able to live independently and as part of an inclusive community. We're looking forward to working with our partners to deliver this exciting project."

The 125,000 beneficiaries will use the basic online tools through a variety of sources including 40 annual Switch On events, Surgeries, 893 annual training sessions and home visits.

The grant comes from the Basic Online Skills funding programme which has been developed with charity Go On UK which aims to make the UK the world’s most digitally skilled nation.

The Big Lottery Fund is committed to improving people’s basic online skills and has reserved a further £9m to support digital inclusion.

 

 

Big Lottery Fund Press Office:  020 7211 1888

Out of hours media contact:  07867 500572

Website:  www.biglotteryfund.org.uk

Twitter:  @biglotteryfund#BigLottery

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/BigLotteryFund

 

 Notes to editors

• 6.4 million UK adults have never used a computer or the internet.

Office of National Stastics. Internet Access Quarterly Update, Q1 2014

• The number of people who are currently below the digital skills threshold in the UK is 9.5m.  Media Literacy – Understanding Digital Capabilities. Ipsos Mori for the BBC, 2014.
• 35 per cent of young people not in education, employment or training ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ look for jobs online and 17 per cent would not apply for jobs that require basic computer skills. One in 10 young people say they do not feel confident filling in online job application forms and creating and updating their CVs on a computer.

Computer Literacy Survey for The Prince's Trust – Ipsos Mori

• The Big Lottery Fund is responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised by the National Lottery.
• The Fund is committed to bringing real improvements to communities and the lives of people most in need and has been rolling out grants to health, education, environment and charitable causes across the UK. Since its inception in 2004 it has awarded close to £6bn.
• In the year ending 31 March 2013, 28% of total National Lottery revenue was awarded to projects. Since the National Lottery began in 1994, £31 billion has been raised and more than 400,000 grants awarded.
• Go ON UK is a cross-sector charity which was established in 2012 to encourage and support people, business and charities to enjoy the benefits of being online. Go ON UK has eight chief executives around its boardroom table – Age UK, BBC, Big Lottery Fund, E.ON, EE, Lloyds Banking Group, Post Office and TalkTalk. Together, Go ON UK’s vision is to make the UK the world’s most digitally skilled nation.