At the recent Annual General Meeting, Cathy McKenzie (Banyule Community Health Financial Counsellor) was awarded the Francis Baum Fellowship to address digital exclusion, financial hardship, and digital literacy.
Cathy saw the impact of the digital divide for many of our clients who experience vulnerability through COVID in the past few years. QR codes, digital certificates, contactless payments, and a reliance on our phone/computer for accessing the world became common place. For some in our community this became even more alienating.
In 2022, Cathy led a pilot providing access to digital solutions to clients and wrapped support around them. Building on the pilot, Cathy’s Fellowship project aims to reduce digital exclusion by connecting eligible community members to low-cost providers, build individual capacity to meet common tasks requiring a digital response, and advocate to enable others to experience better digital access.
Cathy works closely with other Banyule Community Health staff, partners organisations, financial counselling students and volunteers.
Congratulations to Cathy and her project team. We look forward to the next steps on the project.
Discover more
