A Slice of Bread and Butter
The voice of The Bread and Butter Thing - with stories from the frontline of the cost of living crisis from one of the UK's leading food charities.
A Slice of Bread and Butter
Connecting with Confidence with Gemma
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Why is a food charity concerned with digital exclusion? Join Mark and Fiona for a chat about TBBT's Connecting with Confidence project and find out why getting online has transformed TBBT member Gemma's life.
Hi, Mark. Hi. Do you want to hear a joke?
SPEAKER_04Go on then.
SPEAKER_06Why can't elephants use computers?
SPEAKER_04I don't know, Fiona. Why can't elephants use computers?
SPEAKER_06Because they're scared of the mouse.
SPEAKER_04Why are you telling me computer jokes?
SPEAKER_06Because, Mark, today we're talking all things computing and tech and most vitally digital exclusion. So I spent just a little bit of time in the magic place that is the internet, and I stumbled across a load of really geeky computer jokes. Would you like another one?
SPEAKER_04No, maybe later. Should we do this first?
SPEAKER_06You are no fun. Okay, go on.
SPEAKER_04Welcome back to a slice of bread and butter with Mark and Fiona from the Bread and Butter Thing. We're a charity that delivers affordable food to the heart of deprived neighbourhoods to help nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change.
SPEAKER_06Yes, so we offer a really diverse range of food at deeply discounted rates, which means that our members can save money on their shopping, feed their families healthily, and also access all kinds of other support too, right in the heart of their communities.
SPEAKER_04And this is a place where we meet and chat with our members and volunteers to hear about how using the bread and butter thing makes a difference to their lives.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so one part of being that catalyst for change is about bringing in experts and other services to our hubs to support our members with other, well, stuff, for want of a better word, you know, like life stuff, life min. Like making sure people are getting all the benefits they're entitled to, such as healthy start vouchers, or supporting people to create a CV for a job application.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but it it's more than that too, isn't it? We're using our feedback from hubs and data from our surveys and conversations with our members to learn about what would most benefit and deliver the most meaningful and long-lasting impact in our people's lives. And then we look for the best expertise and partners to bring in to create bespoke projects that can make tangible changes in people's lives. I guess we're joining the dots, if you like, between our communities and other support agencies on a local, regional, and national basis.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and one of the biggest stumbling blocks our members face is digital exclusion.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so the pandemic really accelerated the race to digital with so many services moving exclusively online and there's no going back. But a whole swathe of society has been left behind, and it's not about being able to afford to get online either. Some of it is, but whether that's buying kit or paying for broadband, it just doesn't matter. It's also knowing about what to do when they're there. There's a real fear of breaking something or falling victim to a scam. In part, that's a generational thing, but it's also an indication of just how fast things are changing too, and it's easy. It's just too easy to get left behind. We've tried projects before, we've had kit or data to share with our members, but it simply doesn't work without the training to help bring it all together and improve people's confidence in using the device on the internet.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so today we're going to talk about and meet some of the people involved in a new project we've been working on with funding from Lloyd's Bank to bring in a brilliant team called We Are Digital and creating a bespoke collaboration to tackle some of the issues around digital exclusion for our members. To set the scene, let's start by hearing from two of the key people involved in putting the whole thing together. Firstly, Catherine Rutter, who is the director at Lloyd's Bank, responsible for customer inclusion, and Jonathan Prue from We Are Digital about why the project is important to them.
SPEAKER_00But giving access to digital technology, if you look at the banking sector, people may think that is removing them from support. It's actually opening up a range of additional support that people previously haven't been able to access. That could be online chat, could be something as simple as understanding your financial position online and getting a greater understanding of that. And you know, depending on your personal circumstances, how you can secure additional support. So it's really to me is stopping people being excluded from support and knowledge about their own financial situation. That creates a whole range of opportunity. The impact of the training we deliver, I don't think, can just be counted in terms of the number of people that we support. As an example, the bread and butter thing, we've now supported 200 individuals. By the time we finished, we'll have supported about 500 individuals. However, the multiplier effect is significantly more than that. Every parent that comes through this program that leaves with more confidence around technology will impact their own children. If you're a grandparent and you can impact your own children and grandchildren, the multiplier effect continues to grow. So, yes, 200, 500, impressive for one course. You then multiply that around people living their lives more confidently and the impact on their children, their friends and dependents. It's enormous.
SPEAKER_05To be financially educated, people need to have the devices, they need the tablets, they need the broadband, and then they need the education as to how to use these things. You can't assume that everybody understands how to use them. And what projects such as this, from a digital inclusion point of view, are doing is helping people in the local communities. So this is people who want to help themselves. But what's great is that Lois is enabling them to do this.
SPEAKER_06So both Catherine and Jonathan talk about the importance of digital exclusion in terms of personal financial health and literacy and using the internet to fully access support and wider options available. But as Jonathan says, this project was about more than just making sure people could bank online and access their benefits.
SPEAKER_04So much more, right? So we've we first started talking about digital exclusion following one of the surveys last year, which revealed that the barriers for people are threefold. It's kit, it's connectivity. They both feel obvious as they're predicated on cost. But the big one that really came through was confidence. Only a third of our members feel confident online, and that's a problem. So many of them tell us that they simply don't have the digital skills to navigate an online world, and that's exacerbated when your only access is through your phone, right? So we wanted to put together a project that would combine all three elements together.
SPEAKER_06So using certain core services online can often be cheaper and make life less complicated administratively, you know, like the Lifeman. So we asked members about 10 different services that people tend to interact with online. So banking or pet utilities, food shopping, healthcare, or, you know, or school assignments. And again, a third were only accessing one or two of these services online, which means that many of them are incurring additional costs that they wouldn't otherwise if they were accessing more of them through online devices or whatever. But that also means they're more socially isolated as they can't keep in contact with friends and family or find out what's going on locally, or their kids are struggling to do their homework with a knock-on ramifications of reaching their full educational potential.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, absolutely. So we needed to put together a project which included all of those elements. Firstly, some kit. As a third of our members can only access the internet through their phones, so some don't have any access at all. So underpinning the project with access to a tablet, it was vital. So next, connectivity, making sure everyone has data. Almost a quarter of our members have no broadband at all or are completely reliant on their mobile data to get online. By the way, there are social tariffs available, but only half of our members know about it. So, well, actually, more than half of our members didn't know they existed.
SPEAKER_06So that definitely feels like something we should come back to another time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And then the third ingredient is the training to pull it all together.
SPEAKER_06So I went down to St. Luke's, which was one of our pilot project locations, to meet a couple of the trainers, Mohammed and Mohammed, and they talk me through how a typical session worked.
SPEAKER_01You'll be surprised how many people don't know how to do very simple things, but it really does help, and you can see that like people's faces they just light up and they're like, yes, I can do it by myself now. Don't need to ask my daughter or something.
SPEAKER_03Some people struggle opening the SIM card tray. Some people, for example, uh get anxious, thinking, Oh, what I've clicked to the wrong thing, where do I go now? And it's it's our job to help them, you know, feel inclusive, really, in terms of it's okay, you can press back, or if you if you get stuck, we can try again. Or if some people are a little bit more confident, we don't mind them moving forward a little bit, and the ones that do need a little bit more help, but we know we're happy to show them.
SPEAKER_01In the session, we'd start off, we'd hand out a tablet to each person, and then we'll just run through a little setup of the tablet, showing them how to download apps and stuff and search the web and then attaching attachments to emails and stuff.
SPEAKER_03Some individuals have just not ever set up an email address. Sometimes it's a case of people are just really worried that they're gonna break the tablet and say, My children or my partner will do all this for us. So it's a little bit of fear of what's gonna happen next. I think people are just a little bit scared of clicking the next button, and the great thing with digital is you can always undo something and go back.
SPEAKER_01When you're helping them, you can tell they're a bit worried, like, oh, I don't know whether I should put my details in online, or and then just reassuring them that everything's correct and your money's secure and stuff, it does help.
SPEAKER_03I mean, we definitely try to remind people of the basics of device security. So, first of all, we will ask them to set up either a PIN or a password on their device or a pattern. Uh, some of the devices have the biometrics that can do the face recognition. We try to encourage them to have like two-factor authentication. So maybe if they get a pop-up on their secondary device, like their mobile phone, that's a good thing. So just remind them of how important it is to have secure passwords and be a little bit wary that sometimes people can be exploited online and just to be aware of that.
SPEAKER_01There was this one old lady. She'd have to actually go to the neighbour's house just so she could FaceTime her kids. She was over the moon when I downloaded uh WhatsApp on the tablet for her, and I showed her, like, right, you can just FaceTime them now and video call them whenever you like, earlier. It's just little stuff like that, really. Just knowing that you've helped someone, get in contact with someone they love and made their life a little easier earlier.
SPEAKER_03They're coming here and sound every week, every other week. It's nice to see the faces light up and the joy there. Just them being a bit more confident in swiping and moving by the end of the um session, and it's nice that they've got a bigger screen. I think the impact is is really, really nice for them and for us as well.
SPEAKER_04It's great. I love hearing the feedback and the stories from people about how the scheme is making such a difference to them.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so the project ran for six weeks across 10 of our hubs. So we've had almost 500 people through the doors, which is amazing. Really? Um and I managed to grab some time with Gemma at St. Luke's and asked how she found it.
SPEAKER_02Hi, I'm Gemma. I've been involved with bread and butter for five nearly six years. I was here when it started at St. Luke's as a volunteer and as a member, and I spend a lot of time helping out around with it, but I find it beneficial as well for our household. How busy is it here? Absolutely mad. Our hub is very much oversubscribed. We now, I think, is about 400 members, I think, on our books. The local community around here is a very deprived hub, and I mean extremely deprived to the point most of our schools are between 60 and 80% of children on free-to-come meals.
SPEAKER_06When bread and butter is talking to you about bringing a project like We Are Digital Lloyd's project to your hub, what difference do you think that's sort of going to make to the local community?
SPEAKER_02A lot. We've had people with children doing it who are going to use it for their children to homework on now because they can't they don't have any access for homework. We've had the older members who have no access at all to the internet, don't even have it at home, do it. We have ones that could never afford the tablet ever. They're using mobile devices, and being given the ability to show them how to use it because they've never had one in their life is amazing to see. Tell me a bit about the course. What was it like? The course was absolutely amazing. We learned how to set it up the device, how to make video calls. The trainers even helped me and show me how to safely grocery shop online because I'm very much scared of being scammed of money because I've heard it done. They showed me what was safe as well and what to look for, like the padlock, and they showed me how to set up WhatsApp on my tablet device so I can make calls to family members who don't live in within show.
SPEAKER_06Before you did the course, did you have an idea in your head about what you wanted to be able to do?
SPEAKER_02Shop online where you get the cheaper food as well as because the top the shopping it's a lot easier because I couldn't carry, I can't carry big amounts.
SPEAKER_06What was the biggest thing that would have stopped you accessing those kind of services before?
SPEAKER_02The biggest thing that stopped me is mummy. Even the cost of topping up for the internet, it's horrific prices. And even to buy a device that actually will do what you need it to do, it's an expense. So, how much have you used it since you got it? I use it every day because I use it for reading as well. So I use it every night to do video calls with my friends that live too far for me to afford to travel to. Having the We Are Digital and the digital inclusion team here has made a massive benefit to our area because we are very isolated and very much it's a very poor community. I know that we've changed so many lives doing it, and watching their faces as they come out of the training, because being here as a volunteer, you see them happy, and knowing that they're not gonna ever have to worry about I have to miss some meals to buy myself and a piece of technology, or topping it up for the six months you can't, it's just amazing feeling it's made a really big impact because without the training, if you give people a device and a sim card and take it away, then what's the guarantee they're gonna use it? But having the trainers here to show them how to use it and even stick it around for the six weeks they are here, we know that everyone that's got a device is using it for themselves and using it. Giving someone some and not showing them how to use it would never have worked. The training in on top works wonders.
SPEAKER_04Gemma's summed it up perfect there. All the elements we were hoping for.
SPEAKER_06You know, and she's not alone. We'll be chatting to a couple more people in coming episodes about how digital exclusion was sort of impacting them and how the project with Lloyds and We Are Digital has helped. I sort of think we need a snappy title mark. We can't go around calling it the Lloyds and We Are Digital project, we need something else.
SPEAKER_04Okay, I shall look forward to the next episode and the snappy title.
SPEAKER_06Okay, well I'm gonna work on that. But in the meantime, have we got time for another joke before we go?
SPEAKER_04If we must.
SPEAKER_06I think we should. So, what's it called when you take a while to find RAM for your computer?
SPEAKER_04I don't know, Fiona. What is it called when it takes you a while to find RAM for your computer? Short-term memory loss. Do you know I actually like that one?
SPEAKER_06That one really chimed with me. I know. So until the next time, if you'd like to know more about the bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at Team TBBT on Instagram and Twitter, on LinkedIn, or online at breadandbutterthing.org. We're also on threads now too, but I haven't worked out how that works yet.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so if you have any any feedback or thoughts on the podcast, you can get in touch with us by email at podcast at breadandbutterthing.org.
SPEAKER_06And finally, we're always open to new members at all of our hubs. So if you or someone you know would benefit from our affordable food scheme, you can find your nearest hub on the join us pages of the website.
SPEAKER_04And please do all the things that the podcast asks you to do. Like us, subscribe, leave us a review, share us with your friends or your mum, and chat about us on social. Should we log off now? Bye.
SPEAKER_06That was another little computer pun. Okay, speak to you later. Bye.
SPEAKER_00Okay, bye.
