Laurel Lodge goes digital with help of Longford Girl Guides

The Longford Girl Guides and the Vodafone Foundation partnered on a programme set up to help older adults feel comfortable with digital usage and skills.

The programme also hopes to combat the isolation and loneliness that is prevalent within older communities who are sometimes left behind in a digital world.

The Longford Girl Guides brought the programme to the Laurel Lodge. The residents were taught to send texts, play music and watch mass.

One resident plans to tune into Mass three times a day.

The unit leader of North Longford’s senior branch of the Irish Girl Guides Mary Lillis told the Longford Leader how the trip to the Laurel Lodge went.

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“Myself and a few of our senior branch girls from the Irish Girl Guides in North Longford attended a training course in our head office in Tallaght.

“Where we had people from Vodafone, they spoke to us and talked us through the projects.

“We came back, we had a discussion and we decided we would approach Laurel Lodge nursing home as it was a nursing home in the county.”

Mary realised that not only were the projects diminishing loneliness on the digital front but also on the personal as the girls began to bond with the clients in Laurel Lodge.

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“We did find very quickly was that it became much more than just importing the knowledge,” she recalls, “The girls were on the same page as our clients which was lovely to see.

“They started opening up a talking to them about their families, their lives, their experiences growing up and they identified with each other.”

The project was not only beneficial to the clients but for the Girl Guides too.

“One of our Girls loved baking and she was baking as part of her Silver Gaisce Award at the time, she started baking scones and cakes to bring in for a cup of tea when we’d go in on a Sunday.

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“Some of the clients were only able to receive calls, they learned how to make the calls themselves and how to send a text message.

“They did learn how to access the internet, how to get on YouTube if they wanted to listen to music, how to get onto RIP.ie or how to set up a WhatsApp group with their friends or family,”

“So they’re now able to keep in contact with the community, you know, that’s what was important to them.

“It’s so important, especially for older people who are probably feeling loneliness which can be very hard.”

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The Girl Guides are hoping to expand this project to help out any older people aged 55 plus who may not be particularly as versed in the digital world as the younger generations.

“If there are any groups out there be they Women’s Sheds or Men’s Sheds, any types of groups that would like to learn more about technology, or have a need within their group to set up a Facebook account for their group, the girls would love to meet them.”