UCP Volunteers and Staff

UCP is the newest of DAIN’s transnational partners, and we are very excited to be working with its members on Eurolink 2011.

This page will include introductions from UCP volunteers and staff involved in Eurolink 2011.

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You will find below an overview of our movement and its activities

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My name is Franck Moinil and I am Project Manager at UCP, mouvement social des aînés.
Part of my job is to coordinate the ICT thematic in my organization (volunteers, campaigns, special training, …) but also to establish partnerships with municipalities, educational institutions, the EPN (digital public spaces in Wallonia) and associations active in digital literacy and the fight against digital divides.

The UCP, mouvement social des aînés ASBL (non-profit organization) has 40,000 members in the French Community (Wallonia and Brussels).

Movement of Education permanente, the UCP main missions are :

• to encourage participation and involvement of seniors in the social, cultural, economic and political spheres,
• to promote the empowerment of seniors through collective action in order to involve them in building a better world,
• to fight against all forms of discrimination against the elderly,
• to take and support any initiative for the promotion of the autonomy and well-being of seniors.

The UCP is composed of a federal secretariat, 14 regionals, more than 1,200 local groups (meetings, cultural, artistic and sports clubs) and is run by a network of over 3,500 volunteers.

Since its 2001 convention, the UCP became the social movement of seniors and invited its members to organize themselves in order to remain active and critical citizens, and to pay attention to the great debates of society and  to commit to develop a better and more solidaire world.

The UCP has four priority themes: Social security:

• Link to the welfare (pensions) and access to health care for all.
• Place to live: A quality housing for quality living.
• ICT: Together against the digital divide.
• Sustainability: A sustainable world for future generations.

 Secondary themes are: Culture, Europe, Meaning of life.

Espace Cyber Seniors :

This project dates back over 10 years at that time we experienced great difficulty in finding training sites to meet the growing demands of introduction modules to computers and the Internet.
After several months of research and negotiations, we have invested a local graciously put at our disposal by the Christian Mutuality of Hainaut Oriental, the first Espace Cyber ​​Seniors would finally be born!
We have now more than 25 Espace Cyber Seniors.

An Espace Cyber Seniors is a place equipped with minimum five computer stations connected to the Internet offering “digital literacy” activities and free access periods.
They are available in priority to 50 years old and more but not exclusively. Some partnerships are set up with groups of young people, disabled people and other organizations.
The main advantage of these places is to consider the needs of seniors in a friendly atmosphere. Everyone can come and ask questions, bring its experience to the group, test new technologies… and receive advice from a specialized animator that animates that place as vomunteer.

Open source softwares :

Why use this kind of software at the UCP?

The first reason is economic : First, at the association, our premises are equipped with mainly second-hand computers, it would be totally absurd to pay four times the value of material for a non-free office suite. On the other hand, we find abusive to buy an office suite for participants who are sometimes in precarious situations. We can put the CD-ROM with free software used in training the participants legally.

 The second is ethical : The philosophy of freedom is our vision of society, freedom, autonomy, solidarity, sharing, …

 The third is didactic : We regularly hear “I want to follow a course of Word.” We offer a course of “Word Processing”. Why learn to use a particular software? What matters are the process, reflection, skills transfer, …

Seniors opened to ICT

The survey “ICT and Elders” led by the PCU and reveals that older respondents are quite open to technology information and communication technologies (ICTs). Senior citizens would also like adapted rates and above all transparent offers from the various operators but… Not alone!

The campaign “ICT … Do not panic! “

 This campaign has two objectives:

1. Offer support to seniors in their approach of ICT.
 We’ve found that seniors are clearly in demand for coaching in order to adopt new technologies. Whether with the help of someone close, association or municipality, they are looking for places where they can learn how to control ICT at their own speed, without pressure and without too many constraints.

 2. Encourage intergenerational relationships.
 Our movement cares about inter-generational and we therefore decided to launch this new action to:
 - Enhance both intrafamilial and extrafamilial relationships,
 - (Re)create social links at the local level,
 - Promote solidarity between generations.

We hope that this long presentation gave you an idea of ​​our work and what we do on the ground.

See you soon… in Belgium.