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Brookland House is a retirement home with around 25 residents and is managed by Bron Afon Housing. They identified the need for digital skills within this community and are using a portion of their fund from WPA to achieve this.

They  plan to get all the residents up to speed with technology by acquiring: laptops, tablets and broadband service. The group of residents already have a number of weekly social activities, which include: coffee mornings, bingo, fish & chip suppers.  They have expressed an interest in getting online and using the internet.  

Many of the residents are looking forward to the benefits that these digital skills will bring, especially online shopping.  They will be able to go on different sites to see what’s on offer and get the items delivered directly to them.  These skills are often taken for granted by people who grew up with the internet but has been out of reach for those born before its wide spread use.

There is an online group called ‘Cwmbran Past & Present’, which the residents have joined.  As a lot of the residents grew up and worked in the area, they are looking forward to uploading pictures from their past and filling in the blanks where history has missed.

At one of their coffee mornings recently, they were speaking about a famous singer but couldn’t remember their name. Excited to have Google at a touch of a button to get the information instantly.

We’ll be following up with the Brookland House residents in a few months’ time, once they are all set up. Bron Afon will be posting a video on their YouTube channel of everyone in action: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCay-035kjU7aLvmV5SEveig