| dc.description.abstract | It is estimated that about 12 million Polish citizens are affected by the
digital exclusion (Batorski, 2015, p. 355). These people are not able to use the
possibilities and resources hidden from them in the virtual space. A small
part of this group uses some e-solutions in the mediated way, thanks to the
help of others.
The activities designed to minimize the digital exclusion in Poland have
been performed for about 20 years. The first attempts to narrow the digital
division were carried out already in the late 1990s . In the recent years, we
have witnessed the regular development of different organizational forms of
education of the digitally excluded, such as: senior clubs, universities of the
third age, libraries, foundations, cultural centers, e-centers, Orange Academy,
commercial companies and a whole range of non-governmental organizations
involved in raising the level of digital competencies. Digital division has
become a real and significant challenge, due to the fact that technological
development is unavoidable and its consequences are unstoppable.
The example of the Cities on the Internet Association — a nongovernmental
institution responsible for digital inclusion of people from
the generation 50+, shows the new aspects and opportunities for civic
engagement in social policy processes, building human and social capital
and, first of all, in supporting active aging and old age. The activities of
several hundred volunteers-educators highlight the meaning of human and
social forces that positively transform lives of the disfavored persons (the
digitally excluded). The program “Digital Poland of Equal Opportunities” is
so far the largest Polish initiative in the area of digital education. The role
of the Lighthouse Keepers is very complex, as they are primarily volunteers,
whereas their activity may be further analyzed from the perspective of
animators of environmental education or senior educators (geragogues).
Thanks to the regular activities that — in terms of subject matter and
methods — belong to the area of social pedagogy, we can observe that several
years long project of the Cities on the Internet Association, builds many
“bridges” between people from different environments, active and passive,
ICT competent and digitally excluded. The objectives of the project were
to train 54 thousand digitally excluded individuals, by means of volunteer
movement. Through intense involvement of human capital, the assumed
number were exceeded by several times, amounting up to 282 thousand
seniors introduced to the e-services of the information society. The data
dispel some myths about poor involvement of the contemporary society in
voluntary activities, the lack of interest in education services among seniors,
or systemic solutions of social problems through the joint potentials of
government administration, the third sector and bottom-up social activity.
This paper presents the research into the group of individual, organizational
and environmental conditions related to the digital education,
referring to the process of digital inclusion of people aged 50 and more in
their local environments. The cognitive goal of the research was the analysis
of the set of conditions that create and support social forces engaged in the
educational project Digital Poland of Equal Opportunities. The practical
objective referred to the postulates that optimize and support the voluntary
work of the Digital Poland Lighthouse Keepers.
Educational reaction to the phenomenon of digital exclusion, in the form
of the PCRS program, became not only the exemplification of the model of
civil society sensitive to social needs, but also the activity that paved new
ways of social involvement. The PCRS program is also the solution that
creates innovative models of environmental and animating work, as well as
non-formal adult and senior education in their local environments. | en |
