About 2 weeks ago, Lester and I participated in a voluntary project, Nothing Less, organised by Infocomm Accessibility Centre (IAC) and supported by Tribal DDB. IAC provides various IT trainings across all disability types, including physical disabilities, visual impairment, hearing impairment and developmental disabilities.
In this Nothing Less campaign, volunteers deliver 40 netbooks to the homes of people with disabilities, assisting them to connect to the world through social media platforms such as Windows Live, Facebook, Twitter and Skype.
To top it off, Tribal DDB is offering internship to them. They would need to submit an entry as a video of no longer than 1 minute, or as a short write-up of no more than 500 words. More details can be found in the FAQ Page.
We arrived promptly at 9:30am on our mission day. Our client is a 8 years old girl, Cheong Leng, who needs a computer for her school work. We are overwhelmed by the friendly mother who serves us green bean soup before we even started.
Ready for mission
Ready for mission
Delivering the netbook
I am glad Lester is with me because he is the technical guy who assisted in setting up the Internet dongle. To begin with, we have created simple flash cards to show her what the respective social media platforms are for.
Self-made flash cards
Lester setting up Internet dongle
Some considerable time is spent to engage Cheong Leng to talk to us, to type and to choose her login name. Everything else move smoothly. We only encounter minimum age issue, minimum 13 years old, to register for a Facebook account. Therefore, we have to tweak her year of birth in order to proceed.
Mummy getting Cheong Leng to start
Introduction to Facebook
Sending her first friend request message
I believe Cheong Leng is more excited as we move on to Skype. She makes video call out to IAC staff and me (I used my iPhone). Live demonstration and interaction indeed works better for her. Cheong Leng also loves to communicate with Skype emoticons!
Through onsite observations, Lester and I decided change the last social media component: from Twitter to YouTube. We believe YouTube can bring more beneficial information and entertainment to a girl of her age. She has learn how to make a search for videos, loading them, play and pause, and watch them in full screen.
YouTubing her favourite Mr Bean
We’ve never done a 1-to-1 house visit before. This experience is indeed special. Special in the sense that we are able to pass on our IT skill to someone in need. We do hope this visit makes an influence to her in future.
Mission accomplished
Written by Lester Chan & Lay Hiang