The Trigoria day care centre, managed by the Fondazione Alberto Sordi, welcomes about 50 local fragile elders daily thanks to an agreement with Rome’s Municipio IX.
Notwithstanding the fact that the centre’s activities have been suspended due to the health emergency, educators and volunteers continue to take care of the elders at a distance with the help of new technology. And through the Rome Campus Bio-Medico Univeristy they requested support from the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, one of the organisations that have joined the Alliance for Elders.
The first test on digital activities began with a group of five elders - Amalia, Carmelita, Adriana, Rita and Emilio – after the operators were trained to use the Meet Platform, so that they could guide the elders to on-line access over the phone. Moreover, a steering group was created with psychologist Bianca Di Francesco and educator Francesca Lo Spoto to provide custom-tailored support for the needs of each elder.
The objective of every help desk session is to keep up the elders’ social interactions thanks to the help of digital tools. However, the on-line activities also promote positive attitudes and help to fight solitude and isolation.
"Our first meeting was particularly chaotic as everyone was so please to meet again on-line and in video," explains Eleonora Curatola [@Eleonora_FMD]. "There were continuous interruptions to say hello and complement each other. Then, we gradually managed to schedule various activities, including stories, games, tests and even cooperative crosswords. At the end of our meetings, two volunteers - Giampiero and Laura – read out the funniest news of the week and humorous anecdotes."
"Now that they are all sufficiently independent, " adds Eleonora, "we can turn to more specific competences, such as how to improve their use of video cameras. It’s an ongoing challenge, however, as it’s very hard to capture their attention for very long."
Eleonora fervently describes the courses. She is very proud to have contributed to this challenge that initially truly seemed a “mission impossible.” Thanks to the supervision if Cecilia Stajano [@CStajano], School Innovation Coordinator and Community Manager at the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, Eleonora followed all phases of the digital literacy course for operators and elders through to their first platform access.
"In the coming weeks, we will try to involve another group of over-65s suffering from Alzheimer’s and share some activities with them, too. It’s a new challenge!" This is a unique experience for Eleonora, unlike any other of the digital or traditional literacy courses held with the Grandparents on the Internet model.
"Now, we would like to share this experience with other day care centres," explains Cecilia. "It’s a precious resource that can become an important solution even in other contexts."
And it’s not significant that there are just a few participants, because, as Einstein said: " Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted."
