‘Hugely valuable’ rural courses impacted by Covid-19 lockdowns
COMPUTER courses run in community halls across the county should be moved online as they are vitally important to isolated people’s mental health.
This is the view of Jim Foran of Foran Computers who ran a series of 40 courses in 2019 on behalf of Irish Rural Link.
The courses were computer courses aimed at rural communities and getting people online.
‘We also had courses designed for the farming community which the learned how to register on the Agfood.ie site and how to use the AIMS system and register animals online. As it turned out the courses were of huge benefit to the over 300 participants that took part as the lockdown followed and online life became the norm,’ Jim said.
The computer courses were free and Jim was the tutor on behalf of Irish Rural Link. Funded by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, the courses were held in local community centres and parish halls with the local committees getting the free computer courses into their areas.
The courses were based on 10 hours which worked out at two hours on a particular night or morning of the week for five weeks.
‘Courses were designed for all and we had participants of all ages and levels. With many shops and post offices etc closing in rural Ireland the courses provided a great social event for many of the elderly, we would have a 15 minute break after one hour and this allowed for great chats and every one getting to see each other again.’
At the end of 2019, and after completing almost 40 courses, Jim took a break in mid-December and resumed again in February 2020.
‘I was sure the momentum was gone and I wondered if the courses would be as popular again. I got in touch with my contacts in each parish and to my surprise the interest was as high if not greater than before. We had ten courses lined up from Ballycanew to Fethard-on-Sea and many parishes in between. I was delighted and so were Irish Rural Link and while the classes normally consisted of six or eight to a class we had our first course to begin in Bridgetown with ten participants attending.’
The course in Bridgetown had started sometime in February, with plenty of interaction and the participants were really involved with it. ‘However after the third week lesson Covid-19 had kicked in and our courses were closed down. It was a huge blow and many of the participants were very disappointed, as was I, but of course we knew it was the correct decision. All other courses we had arranged in various parishes also had to be put on the long finger.
‘We had rearranged and thought they might get going again last September but alas we had to pull the plug on that again. Then there was news that there might be a chance of getting something up and running around Christmas 2020 with small numbers but alas that went by the wayside also.’
News of the vaccines brought some hope for Jim but that has been dampened by the latest lockdown and the continuation of tight restrictions, ‘This will have a negative effect on our courses. The courses were a huge help to many during the pandemic as everyone’s life went online.
We would love to roll out the courses again as it would be of great benefit to many struggling with the online new world however we totally understand the need for the restrictions. We had a webinar about the problems we face and how to get people online or onto training again https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=ps_ZnV6KJzU’
He has contacted the department with a view to trying to get funding to run the courses online. ‘At this stage it looks like we will not get our courses up and running for quite a while. We will continue to work on it and we are still putting proposals to the department to see if we can get the go ahead.’