Get Online Week campaign in Russia was organized for the third time, and PH International (PH) with its Your Course: Digital Literacy (Tvoy Kurs) Program was the national coordinator. Based on the visibility and success of the previous years, Get Online Week 2012 has aroused even greater interest in many Russian areas.
One of the many stimulating activities organized throughout the campaign, the “I Can Hear You, People!” workshop on using Skype triggered much excitement. While Nadezhda Loginova quietly ooh-ed and aah-ed over her ability to see her relatives on the screen (“Lena, dear, is it really you?!”), Nikolay Meshcheryakov’s excitement boiled over, and his powerful “Yo, brother! How are you all?” boomed all over the Center.
Get Online Week campaign in Russia was organized for the third time, and PH International (PH) with its Your Course: Digital Literacy (Tvoy Kurs) Program was the national coordinator. Based on the visibility and success of the previous years, Get Online Week 2012 has aroused even greater interest in many Russian areas. The event was promoted through the extensive network of PH partners and alumni and received a ready response – over 100 organizations registered for the Get Online Week (GOW). Organizations then involved their partners and volunteers to promote the campaign and conduct its events.
“Many thanks to the organizers! They helped us to “wake up” and encouraged to learn many things and show our readers the potential of ICT. We realized that libraries can provide information in any form and work with their readers at a new level!” – L. Kupriyanova, Serafimovich, Volgograd Region.
To engage new partners and facilitate their participation, PH has translated and adapted all the GOW information and recommendations on organizing the campaign, and in addition developed the training materials for workshops and seminars. Our partners celebrated the European campaign with interesting and varied programs, including seminars and lectures, workshops and round tables, e-skills testing and video conferences.
Results
12.502 people registered on the Get Online Week counter; 1.200 people took Skillage, 320 organizations in at least 300 localities were involved, Russian organizations provided events for 14.100 people in all the campaign topics, from testing in Digital Literacy, teaching how to browse Internetand register email accounts, to training in using e-government and online bank services.
77% of all users registered from telecenters. 3.148 (25%) were first time Internet users, 5.835 (47%) used Internet before but came for more training, and 3.518 (28%) supported the campaign. 4.808 (38%) were employed people, 3.060 (24%) were retired, 3.992 (32%) were students and 642 (5%) were unemployed. Traditionally, almost three times more women than men participated in the campaign events (71% and 29% respectively).
“During the Get Online Week we became even more convinced that it is a truly great privilege to help users discover the world of the Internet and the many wonderful opportunities that it provides!” – Mezhdurechensk Library staff
The most active regions?
The Volgograd region was a great example of the success again with our strong centers at Volgograd Regional Academic Library and Volgograd State Agricultural University. Altogether they engaged almost 6.000 people!
During the week a megabyte (1024) of people were engaged in Zheleznogorsk, 617 in Novokuznetsk, 540 in Krasnoyarsk, more than 500 people were involved by Togliatti State University in Togliatti, Samara, Syzran’ and Stavropol district; 414 people participated in Volzhskiy, 397 –in Tambov and 278 – in Saratov.
We are very pleased to mention our new partners who we worked with during the Get Online Week 2012:
» Aktanysh Methodological Center from Tatarstan conducted the events for 636 people. Among the variety of workshops E-Citizen seminar was especially popular. According to the participants’ feedback, all of them enjoyed the campaign and would be glad to take part in such events in future.
» About 400 residents of Angarsk attended various events held during the week and registered on the Get Online Week website. Young visitors of the Central Library enjoyed participating in presentations and seminars, such as Virtual Library of the World and Safety Online organized for them by the library staff.
Get Online Week Stories:
- Volgograd: And I know the world is mine just as long as I am online!
Thanks to European Get Online Week, 82-year-old folk singer Kseniya Petrunina from the Cossack village of Tepikinskaya was able to find traditional wedding songs, lullabies and other Cossack folklore songs, enriching her own large repertoire. She will now perform new lullabies for young mothers, beautiful Cossack marching songs for draftees, and, hopefully, wedding songs for her yet unmarried grandchildren. Kseniya Petrunina is a firm believer in keeping and strengthening old Cossack traditions.
» read more about Kseniya’s first online experience
- Krasnoufimsk: And then I saw Internet – Now I am a Freelancer
Retiree Valentina Loginova from Krasnoufimsk wants to become a freelancer, taking orders and selling her unique handmade crafts online. She made the decision after attending the Jobs Online seminar, organized by the Paluba ICT Center (city of Krasnoufimsk, Sverdlovsk region).During Get Online Week the Paluba ICT Center staff introduced many Krasnoufimsk residents to ways of working from home. There are many remote job vacancies online, but often senior citizens lack self-confidence and need expert advice to match their skills and competence level with available job offers. Aleksei Pasynkov, an online business owner and a volunteer trainer with the Tvoy Kurs Center, shared his own experience and reviewed various types of online employment.
» read more about the workshop and participants feedback
Overview of events in Russian Cities:
- Volgograd: Uniting World War II Veterans from Novosibirsk and Stalingrad
Over 2.000 people were involved in GOW events conducted by Volgograd State Agricultural University. Besides workshops, targeting specific professions, they held several video conferences with rural areas of the region and other cities. The one between Volgograd and Novosibirsk proved especially significant for all its facilitators and participants. More than 200 army divisions from Siberia took part in the epic WWII Battle for Stalingrad (as Volgograd was named before). Old battle wounds and advancing age make travel difficult for veterans, the youngest of whom is 87, so the university organized an online meeting for WWII veterans from Novosibirsk and Stalingrad, members of volunteer history groups that search for and bury remains of fallen soldiers
» read more - Togliatti
Togliatti State University didn’t limit its activities just to its city, nine more organizations joined their efforts to introduce the area’s residents to the digital civilization. Educational establishments in villages and cities of Togliatti, Samara, Syzran’ and Stavropol district and even a museum took part in Get Online Week. For the first time school and university students took part in the Teach Your Family Campaign, teaching their family members to use the Internet and various online services. More than 500 residents of the region and the city of Togliatti made their first forays into the world of computer technologies and had their first taste of online opportunities.
» read about the scale and variety of events - Krasnoyarsk: Get Online Week on the Yenissey banksState Academic Library in Krasnoyarsk Area celebrated Get Online Week with a diverse and interesting program:
the First Click campaign, the I Asked My Yandex campaign, Online Banking Services and Housing and Communal Services Online workshops, E-Krasnoyarsk seminar from the senior city administration officer, the Skype seminar on Open Online Auction and more. More than 280 people took part in the campaign. They were of different ages, interests, social and educational backgrounds but had one common goal: to learn as much as possible about the Internet and to begin using new skills in everyday life.
» read more - Tambov
As part of European Get Online Week, the ORT-Kesher Center, which runs the Tvoy Kurs program in Tambov, held Open Internet Doors Week at the Tambov Vocational College of Trade Technologies, targeting both students and local residents, with special emphasis on job seekers, parents and teachers of secondary school students, senior citizens, and people with disabilities.
More than 400 people attended events and registered on the Get Online Week website. Participants were given colorful badges “I am a Get Online Week participant” and a small booklet on e-government and other online services. - » read more
- Saratov
278 local residents attended various events, held at the Tvoy Kurs Center of Saratov State University for Economics and Social Sciences.
Elementary school kids learned about online safety; seniors enjoyed learning about gardening, cooking, and folk medicine; art lovers took virtual gallery tours. Special Women Online program introduced trainees to household resources. The Big Student Click campaign was aimed at attracting the university students to test their skills and at recruiting them as volunteers
.
» read more - Ulyanovsk
Get Online Week in Ulyanovsk has had a great kick-off! Over 60 senior surfers came to Ulyanovsk State University to participate in a traditional European Get Online Week. Center staff told participants about possibilities of the Internet and main online services.
Head of the Department of State Regulation of the Ulyanovsk Ministry of IT Yaroslav Egorov helped them take the first steps on the regional e-government portal, while student volunteers assisted them during the whole day with going online for the first time and registering at the campaign official website, creating e-mail accounts and searching for the necessary information online.
» read more - Izhevsk
Izhevsk Center organized a number of different workshops for 100 people: Online Communications looked at various ways to exchange messages, video chats through e-mail, Skype, and social networks; the E-government seminar introduced users with disabilities to the Federal E-Government Portal as well as regional municipal e-government websites;
the Video Services on the World Wide Web seminar provided its participants with information on searching for scientific, educational and training videos on the Internet, downloading and saving the information on their computers.
» read more - Mezhdurechensk
The Mezhdurechensk (Kemerovo region) library held seven Tour Around the Internet seminars, attended by 55 people: The Dacha Owners Route, Mezhdurechensk Route, Travel Bug Route, Literary Internet Tour, and others. The seminar series proved to be very helpful and met many of local residents’ online needs.
» What did each route offer?
The “I Can Hear You, People!” workshop on using Skype triggered much excitement. While Nadezhda Loginova quietly ooh-ed and aah-ed over her ability to see her relatives on the screen (“Lena, dear, is it really you?!”), Nikolay Meshcheryakov’s excitement boiled over, and his powerful “Yo, brother! How are you all?” boomed all over the Center.
» Would you like to know more about true emotions and excitement?
The Flying Letters seminar on using e-mail also proved to be very emotional. … Some panicked seeing black dots instead of the letters and numbers when typing the password: “What did I do wrong? Where did the letters and number go?” But how happy they were to receive first emails!
» Learn more about challenges and first successes
Best people reach: Volgograd State Academic Library involves 3,700 people
Volgograd State Academic Library organized and extensive promotion of the campaign in the region through social networking, media coverage, dissemination of training and information materials, seminars and workshops. As a result, 79 libraries of Volgograd region held 166 seminars in Internet literacy. For the first time European Get Online Week was joined by 34 rural libraries and involved multiple partnerships between educational institutions, social service agencies, museums, youth analytical and information centers, clubs and a children’s home, getting on board more than 20 government bodies and NGOs.
In the Volgograd region European Get Online Week was launched on 26 March 2012 at the Pobeda Press Center of the regional administration with participation of Vadim Shchepinov, the chair of the Committee for ICTs and Telecommunications, and Aleksandr Sitnikov, vice-chairperson of the Committee for Culture in the regional administration.
Voting for Russia was an important part of all Get Online Week events. Residents of Kamyshin proved to be the most enthusiastic of all: 1,081 people voted in various town libraries. Altogether 3,700 users from Volgograd region cast their votes for Russia during European Get Online Week.
» read more about the scale of events and outcomes
» Download the complete report of Get Online Week 2012 in Russia
