The original text was published in german.

Wendy Ramola has a degree in social economics and works as an educational assistant at the “Ländliche Erwachsenenbildung in Niedersachsen e.V.” (LEB). Her work focuses on advising groups, associations, institutions and municipalities on educational processes. In this context, she designs and organises political and media education projects in urban and rural areas. In the EPALE interview, she presents the project “digital village vehicle - mobile support for digital media in rural areas”, which aims to bring people in rural areas together with an offer on media competence.

What is the project "digital village vehicle - mobile support for digital media in rural areas" about and how did it all start?

The core idea of the "digital village vehicle - mobile support for digital media in rural areas“ (DigiMo) is to travel directly to rural areas with several digital village vehicles in order to bring young and older people together with an attractive media literacy offer and thus close the gap of missing digital education offers in rural areas.

It all started when the Federal Ministry of Education and Research announced the competition of „Gesellschaft der Ideen“ ("Society of Ideas") in 2020. It is about the Ideas-Competition for Social Innovation (“Ideenpreis für soziale Innovationen”). About 1000 projects applied, 30 of which were convincing. One of them was the "digital village vehicle - mobile support for digital media in rural areas“", which was submitted by the LEB.

What happened after you were selected?

After that, the concept phase began. We looked for partners from practice and science. In the meantime, the team is made up of the “LEB”, “Freie Altenarbeit Göttingen e.V.” (FAG), the “Agrarsoziale Gesellschaft e.V.” (ASG) and the “University of Göttingen”. (ASG) and the “University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HAWK) Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen, Faculty of Resource Management”.

We then had half a year to develop a concept from the idea. When this concept was ready, we submitted it again to the "Society of Ideas". The 30 best ideas will now go through a second voting process in which citizens can support the idea they think is best. The 10 most popular ideas are then allowed to enter a scientifically supervised 2-year trial phase. We started this at the beginning of 2022 and now we have two years to test our project, the Digital village vehicle, in learning and experimentation spaces.

What exactly is the digital village vehicle?

The digital village vehicle is a bus. Qualified educators from the independent work with the elderly drive to villages that can apply for this project and also bring along the complete technical equipment such as notebooks, tablets, smartphones, headsets, etc. The work is carried out on site.

What does the work look like on the ground?

Our project is based on the three pillars of qualification, education and counselling. In the first step, the educators qualify volunteers through train-the-trainer units so that they are able to pass on their knowledge about media use empathetically, with patience and in small steps to those who so far have rather little knowledge in dealing with digital media. Once they are trained, we can then offer proper educational programmes on site. 

Who are the volunteers and how do you reach them?

On the one hand, we will make a big announcement and approach the local press. On the other hand, we are very well networked in rural areas here in Lower Saxony through our work. We assume that the qualified people will be younger. Perhaps people will also come forward who are already a bit older, who have moved to the villages, for example, because of the pandemic, work from home there and are well versed in the digital world. These people can then help people who have little knowledge of digital media to get to know the digital worlds better.

What are the central learning topics at these mobile learning locations?

It will probably look very different. The learning content we will offer will always be oriented towards the people on site. First, we identify the educational needs in terms of content, and then we use targeted interventions to achieve learning successes in the village. So there is no fixed curriculum, but we look at what is needed. For some people it will be the case that they really need to be told what a mouse is, what a cursor is, how to switch on a computer. Others might want to know how to make a video call to their family in France. Still others want to drag photos from their smartphone to their laptop.

Another topic could be telemedicine, for example. In villages where the last doctor has left, questions may arise about how telemedicine works, whether it is serious and what to look out for. Here, too, the qualified people will be there to help.

To what extent will what you have learned be anchored in the long term?

Initially, our educators will still be present at the educational events. But the goal is that at the end of these training events, the qualified people, i.e. the volunteers, will create their own offer for the local people. For example, they might offer a digital consultation hour once a week, or a committed person might be particularly knowledgeable in a certain area and offer a workshop.

The premises in which these offers take place will also be on site. This could be the hall of the volunteer fire brigade or a village community centre. Internet is not mandatory because that is included in our package and we bring that. The people involved can see how this develops and also which premises they will continue to use afterwards. The project creates a basis for digital participation and new contact opportunities between young, old, newcomers and old residents. This means that our project does not necessarily focus on these educational opportunities, but on bringing society as a whole closer together. That people grow together into a community, that people can find out where their resources are and develop them or pass them on. These are the core points of our project.

Qualification and education are the first two pillars of your project, what does the third pillar look like?

As a third pillar, we also offer counselling services. This means that we also travel to other villages with the digital village vehicle, not only to these three pre-selected ones. You can imagine it as a kind of rolling supermarket. We stand in front of a supermarket or at a fire brigade festival, for example, and in our Digital village vehicle there is kind of a show room. Here we show many different digital devices that people can try out and ask questions about. The inhibition threshold for people is kept low because it's not a room you can really go into, it's just a car that you approach. 

How did you find out that the need for such a project is particularly high in rural areas?

On the one hand, our experience from working with groups and associations in rural areas clearly showed this, and with the scientific side of the project we have already done many surveys in rural areas that show the need. Again, it became clear that compared to urban areas, educational opportunities in villages are still not well equipped. 

This was also confirmed by the fact that many people called us and expressed their interest when it was announced that we had won the ideas competition. Many people told us on the phone that they would also like to see services in the countryside, because they don't always want to take the bus or the car.  For us, this is a very central point to enable equal living conditions between town and country. Even if people from urban areas express interest, we are happy to involve them in the project. We are very open to an exchange between town and country.  

Can you say something else about the intergenerational approach of your project?

We have had very good experiences that older and younger people can support each other on certain topics. Especially in the digital field, I had great experiences years ago. Often, the focus of such cooperation is not on the educational content. It's much more about simply exchanging ideas, getting to know each other and overcoming fears and prejudices. In villages, it is very important that there is cohesion in society as a whole. I suspect that cohesion in villages is perhaps already more pronounced than in urban areas, but people can still benefit so much from each other, especially in the digital sphere. You get to know each other in a completely different way. 

Where do you go from here and what would be the perfect outcome of the project for you?

Ultimately, everything we are doing right now is aimed at being able to go into the implementation phase after these two years of testing, which is what the next phase is called. There will again be a procedure in which a few projects will be selected, which will then really be promoted in their implementation in the next few years. For us, this would mean that we can start not only with one digital village vehicle, but perhaps with ten village vehicles, and that this can then really take place nationwide. That is our ultimate goal, so to speak. And, of course, that we have trained many people so that they expand their knowledge and also have the desire to further engage with the topic. At best, of course, the people in the villages will organise themselves in a completely new way and something new will emerge from this project, new acquaintances will be made and perhaps other projects will also emerge.

More information about the project: https://www.leb-niedersachsen.de/das-digitale-dorf-mobil.html

Gesellschaft der Ideen: https://www.gesellschaft-der-ideen.de/de/home/home_node.html