IT CAN HELP: Trouble with your computer? Free IT help for disabled people

Helping disabled people to gain computer confidence

IT Can Help has helped more than 5,000 disabled people overcome computer-related problems, since it was founded in 1994, solving many hardware and software problems, as well as helping people to gain confidence in using a computer.

The problems faced by IT Can Help Volunteers are many and varied, and frequently necessitate several visits to the same client before a problem can be satisfactorily resolved. Clients may be blind or visually impaired, have suffered a stroke or have been disabled as the result of an accident. Or have long-term debilitating conditions such as Motor Neurone Disease (MND) or Parkinson’s Disease. Problems can be complex or simple to fix. These are just a few examples of what an IT Can Help Volunteer can expect.

A blind novelist who relies upon her computer system to read incoming mail and to read out her manuscripts had trouble with her printer, scanner and voice output system. The Volunteer who visited her discovered that the wrong voice output software had been supplied by the manufacturer, and that the wrong drivers for the scanner had been loaded. Both problems were quickly eliminated.

In another case, a road traffic accident left a teenager with brain damage. As a result, she was deaf, unable to speak and could not leave her bed. She badly wanted to use a computer to communicate with family and friends. An IT Can Help volunteer obtained a laptop computer and got it repaired free of charge, with the result that the young woman now spends hours every day using her laptop to speak.

Not all cases involve technology, however. An elderly resident with Parkinson’s Disease, living in a care home in the Midlands, became a wheelchair user following an accident. This made it difficult for him to use his computer, because he couldn’t get his legs under the table on which it sat. During the course of three visits an IT Can Help Volunteer made a wooden stand that raised the computer eight inches, enabling the client to drive straight in and operate it from his wheelchair. The Volunteer also upgraded the client’s email software and gave him one-key access to the Internet. He also gave the client some extra tuition in the use of email, and his digital camera.

A lady with MND needed help in up-grading her computer and adding a modem for email. She also needed a new printer. IT Can Help Project Leader Ken Stoner, himself severely disabled by MND, arranged for North East Hampshire MND Branch to finance purchase of all equipment required so that IT Can Help Volunteers could install it for her. The work included setting up a new monitor, modem, one year’s ISP support, and fitting additional RAM to her PC. The local Council also installed new power points for her.

Contact 0800 269 545 and also the web www.itcanhelp.org.uk Interested parties may wish to join our Facebook Group www.facebook.com/itcanhelpni