Louth Local Development host event for older people

Louth Local Development’s SICAP Programme in collaboration with ALONE, through funding received under Solas in the Adult Literacy for Life’s (ALL) Strategy Collaboration & Innovation Fund hosted the SMART Cafés – Smarter Living for Older People across County Louth in October 2024. 

The SMART Cafés programme was established to prevent older persons from being at a disadvantage by familiarising them with the use of digital modern technology, to both enhance their technology skills in a digital age and to combat social isolation.

The collaborative project saw learners over the age of 55 years attending classes in a drop in café style environment in Ardee, Drogheda and Dundalk twice a week. Almost 50 participants attended the beginners’ classes with a further 64 attending the advanced sessions. There were also 15 volunteer grass root Digital Champions recruited for the project that were trained under the Hi Digital training with ALONE and voluntarily donated their time to help train the learners along with the 2 class tutors.  

On Thursday 7th November the learners, volunteer champions, representatives from the SICAP Programme and ALONE came together to attend a heartwarming Celebration of Success Prize Giving Ceremony in the Monasterboice Inn.  

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Speaking at the event Maeve Harkin Social Inclusion Manager for Louth Local Development congratulated and commended the learners adding, “It has been such an amazing achievement for the learners to take a leap of faith and gain the confidence to learn these newfound skills in digital literacy. Many services and amenities are moving to a digital platform leaving older people at risk of being marginalised further from accessing opportunities.

"The SMART Café programme has been invaluable for the participants who learned a basic introduction to Smart phones, connecting with family and friends, cyber security, scams and frauds and digital living- making payments, booking services and exploring hobbies. Many of the participants were age 80+ which is what Lifelong Learning is all about.”  

Linda Murray CIN ALONE commended the digital champions for their dedication and commitment to assisting others to learn. She spoke of the value of value of volunteering and peer learning and how lovely it was to see the Café in action when she visited Ardee.