Sabina Shrestha, John Hamer, Martin Taylor and I attended the national ALW award ceremony on Monday in London.  It was really great day with some truly inspiring stories about the difference adult learning makes to peoples lives.  Sabina accepted the certificate and £1000 learning voucher on behalf of the project.     (See below for comments by John).

Matthew McVeagh, Ian Baker, Janet Jones and Vimal Bhatt then represented the project at the regional celebration day on Wednesday in Leicester and had a very enjoyable day with good entertainment, a great compere and some really inspiring award winners.  It has been a fantastic week celebrating the difference that adult learning can make in the lives of anyone. (Comments below from Matthew)

Our thanks to the ALW teams involved in both days for making the events so positive for everyone involved.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions of the best use of the £1000 learning voucher to enable as many DAs as possible to benefit please let us know.     Many congratulations again to all DAs for their hard work which has made such a difference to the people they have helped and which has led to this award!

For more information see our previous post:  http://dainproject.com/2012/05/04/dain-wins-esf-inspiring-learning-project-award/

Thanks goes to all the dedicated Digital Activists who have been working hard in their local communities over the last 3 years to make such a difference to the local community members that they have supported in use of technology.

DAs will be attending the award ceremonies both in London and Leicester during Adult Learners’ Week to receive certificates and take part in the celebrations, and we are all really excited!

Please  click here for full press release: DAIN ALW Award press release 4th May 2012 final

For an overview of the DAIN journey please see our e-inclusion scrapbook, created by Mary Moss with input and ideas from DAs:  http://dainproject.com/e-inclusion-award/

Summary of DAIN areas of excellence produced by ILEN Associates, DAIN external evaluation team:

DAIN Evaluation_Annex_1_Key_areas_of_excellence

Annex_3_Dain_delivering_innovation

After a FUN ice breaker and some tea and biscuits  we will be discussing 5 key questions:

Please join in the discussion by adding your comments below – the more the merrier

It’s the digital activist awards … gasps of delight and excitement from the audience. DA award one. Janet Jones wins the first award. We hear from Ian, another digital activist and an audio link that he sent in in order to nominate Janet. He says that Janet has been keeping the project alive in Mansfield and has helped numerous people to feel digitally included. He says he felt he simply had to put in a nomination because Janet is simply too modest to nominate herself.

Angelique thanks Ian for his nomination. She says Janet is awsome and one of the most engaging, hardworking and caring volunteers she has ever met.

Ian accepts the award on Janet’s behalf as, unfortunately Janet is not well enough to attend today’s event. He says that Janet’s name was the first name that came to mind when he heard about the awards. Janet we hope you are tuning in. Thank you so much. You simply brilliant!

Mary is up now to tell us about the next award winner. Mary says that Brian Shelmerdine is a shining example of a DAINer who has, despite many chanllenges, always gets stuck in. He never says no.

“I think that my work as a DA has provided the spark that has enoucraged people to become interested in digital technology and in some cases, in something special which may trasnform their lives”

Brain now receives his award from Mike Attwell, Regional Director of the East and West Midlands.

Steve Stocks is the next award winner. His enthusiasm has never waned. What was most impressive about Steve is the other things that Steve has gone on to do as a result of being a Digital Activist. Steve says a few words about why DAIN has been so important to him.

Andria says she is proud to Shaista Ahmed is one of the very first DAs to have trained on the project. Shaista is like Janet, a quiet dynamo. She has probably recruited more DAs than other people. She continues to help local people.

Lisa asks for a round of appaluse for all the digital activists and some champagne and juice is distributed to all. Andria makes a toast to Angelic whose is leaving today, and then a final toast from Lisa celebrating the work of DAIN and it’s volunteers.

And then thats it folks.

Thanks for following and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

That was well recieved by the audience.

Lisa is reading out some of the comment slips that have been left as well as questions about where StartPoint gets its volunteers. Anne Wallace describes how local people took the intiative because they wanted to give something back to their community.

Anne is taking questions from the audience.

Anne describes how the local council have been supportive of the Coffee Shop, and gets a laugh when she describes how she fell into the community sector because there where no other options available at the time.

More general questions about the support and expenses for volunteers and the changes that project has had to deal with over the past couple of years.

“Anne Wallace: Your project and you are very inspirational. I think it is amazing that you went from wanting to sell your business tio being the hub of your local community.”

She has billed her session as HOT AIR: Discussions about our Digital Future.

Mary has a bit of back and forth with the audience to draw up a list of good things and people required for a successful party.

Some pretty vigourous discussions going on at the tables and colourful ballon diagrams to outline people’s views of the future direction of travel and challanges.

Anne is giving a fascinating story of the challenges of running a business, and how these challenges, including the closing of her business’ lead to the setting up of a community cafe, that became a UK Online Centre. The motivation was to ensure their local community survied some difficult times and that local people had opportunties to develope new skills

Andira thanks the DAIN workers who have been a great time through out the project and have given their all to make sure it is a sucess.

But she saves her biggest thanks for the DAIN activists, most of whom are in the room.

Andria talks about how the technological world is so dynamic and ever changing, and how the DAIN Project volunteers have engaged and communicated this. DAIN has been really important in expanding the role and inclusiveness of the WEA.
She praises them for the variety of skills and abilities they have brough to the project and points out how the variety of skills has served the communities they worked with.