The sense of belonging to a community re-emerges during emergencies. Mayor Silvano Cappelli points this out at the re-opening of the multimedia lab at the San Demetrio Ne’ Vestini Institute that has been dedicated to Prof. Gianni Di Genova (12 December 2009).
The lab, which until recently was the operating headquarters for COM2 (the committee organizing assistance to the earthquake victims) was re-opened thanks to a citizen who liasoned between the Fondazione Mondo Digitale and school administrator Lucia Di Giulio. Toshiba and Microsoft were amongst the first companies to answer the ICT for Abruzzi call to action.
San Demetrio was also helped by Abruzzi migrants now living in Canada, a community of over 13,500 individuals, who have experimented a new form of association.
During a recent visti in their homeland, a group of Italo-Canadian citizens asked Mayor Cappelli to develop an inter-generational centre in San Demetrio Ne’ Vestini: a space that could unite elders and youth and provide various activities, including technology, culture and exercise. The Mayor has declared that this facility could be erected in the area of the sports complex.
The first sign of this vast new project seems to be Grandparents on the Internet, the digital literacy course for the elderly, organized by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale, which is based on an inter-generational model: young students act as tutors to teach elders how to use PCs via a personal didactic relationship.
The course has been validated by the experience of seven editions and is structured through a custom-tailored didactic kit developed by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale in collaboration with the “La Sapienza” University of Rome. “The kit features, for example, a large character set to facilitate reading by elderly students,” school administrator Lucia Di Giulio pointed out at the presentation.
The first Grandparents on the Internet course in San Demetrio Ne’ Vestini will begin in January. It will be the first municipality in Abruzzi to host this programme and, starting today, the young tutors will be able to prepare in the lab re-opened thanks to the generous donations by Toshiba (hardware) and Microsoft (software). Prof. Gianluca D’Ignazio will coordinate the programme.
