Monday 17 June 2019

Congratulations to seven neighbourhood house networks who recently won six $50,000 Capacity Building Grants from the Australian Government's Be Connected grants program.

These grants will be used to strengthen and expand the excellent work neighbourhood houses are already doing in digital literacy training.

The successful grant recipients are:

• Pangerang Community House with Upper Murray Regional Neighbourhood House Network
• Regional Association of Neighbourhood and Community Houses
• North West Neighbourhood House Network
• Network West
• Network of the Inner East Community Houses with Community Houses Association of Outer Eastern Suburbs
• North East Neighbourhood House Network

Neighbourhood houses do heaps of great work in their communities to strengthen digital literacy. This work helps break down barriers experienced by some community members in accessing key services and activities.

We also know that a lack of skilled volunteers sometimes prevents neighbourhood houses from being able to offer as many digital literacy activities as their community needs. This exciting new funding will address help address this issue in many communities across the state.

The funding will be used to employ a Digital Lead trainer in each Network to train and support 50 to 100 local volunteers or existing staff members to become Digital Mentors for their community, particularly supporting older people to thrive in a digital world.

NHVic in collaboration with Tennille Hall at Pangerang Community House will facilitate a collaborative state wide approach to this project, providing a forum for Digital Lead trainers to share experiences, strategies and good practice during the project and assisting with reporting and acquittal requirements.

For more information about the program, visit the Be Connected website.