In Limburg, projects have been set up with funding from the province of Limburg as an experiment. The participating municipalities were Kerkrade, Horst aan de Maas and Leudal.
Project results
Groups and participants
Groups have been set up in Kerkrade, Horst aan de Maas and Leudal. In the 12 groups (of which 8 in Kerkrade) more than 150 participants have expanded their social network with the help of digital tools. In most cases it concerned the use of Facebook, Skype, etc. to establish and maintain contacts. With 5 groups, people have also regularly entered the virtual world.
Transmission
VayaV have supported the groups until the regular welfare work has completely taken over the activities. For participants VayaV continues to provide a virtual world and a helpdesk.
Feedback from participants
From the reactions of the participants it can be concluded that a whole new world has literally opened up and that this has certainly contributed to the expansion of the social network.
The participants can best express this themselves. Here is a selection of their feedback:
"I can now contact and consult with other people via the internet, and at home I use the tablet a lot to correspond with the children and respond via Facebook, and so far it has brought me a lot."
"When we went to the beach for the first time in the virtual world to swim, I really had a flirt with someone, who turned out to be over 80. But that's not how we look at that."
"Within my circle of acquaintances I can now correspond via the tablet, but now I can also make nice appointments, without the tablet that is more difficult." Look, "even if you are 81, you want to learn something".
"First you do not know anyone and then you are dancing and bowling together in the virtual world, which I really did not expect."
"After my husband died I was alone, now I have so many friends from the group and I can also share messages with others from home. You also have the feeling" I belong ".
"Now I can exchange messages and information with others when I am at home.If you are at home alone, it is nice to be able to talk to others via the tablet. I like it very much, it's a nice group."
​
"When I was in the nursing home after a heavy operation, I got a lot of reactions and messages on Facebook, that was great, so I'm very happy that I gave up and never expected this."
"At the moment I send messages to the children, family and friends, mainly through Facebook and Messenger, but for the rest I do not dare to do so much, but it is positive what it has brought me so far."
