Crafting community

The primary goal of my elder care anarchy efforts is working with others to craft a community of support, gifts & expertise.  The friend who produces exquisite personal story videos, the one who offers elders blog-writing support, the whiz who can explain computers so even I can understand - these & many more coming together to help engage, energize & empower.  

The circle's just begun to grow.  Unexpected kindred spirits pop up, like the acquaintance who sang to my heart with the following FB post on how to help older relatives with technology:  


What do you think?
 
I'm trying to figure out how to harness the power of social media/networking so we can safely provide assistance to our older relatives who have minor technology issues (not the kind that need a paid repair person), issues that any of us (heck, any of our school aged kids!) could solve, but which our older relatives can't because they didn't grow up with this technology.
 
- My idea is that we could somehow create a network in which friends can introduce friends who live within (ideally) 1-2 miles of an older person who needs tech-support, so that Grandpa Clem can call his daughter and say, "I just don't get it. I click and click on that blue e and my e-mail doesn't open anymore." And then his daughter, who earlier checked on the tech-support network group and found someone who lives right in Grandpa's neighborhood, can say, "Don't worry Grandpa. I'll call a friend of my who lives right in your neighborhood and she'll send over her 9 year-old grandson who can get you logged in."

- Any interest in something like this?
- Any ideas in how to make it work?
- Any ideas for how to make it safe so predators don't use it to prey on our dearly loved older relatives?

Gleefully touching base with her - sing to me, sister! - she summed up the challenge of taking our passion & translating it into action ~ ~ finding ways to move from concept to workability.  It is exciting to be started in another interchange with another soul who's seen the light. 

In my experience, that is the crucial key - interchange, interacting with older friends & loved ones, getting into discussions.  It all translates into helping them access the internet in safe, secure ways.  And it takes time & energy & emotional investment - on their part, on ours.  The best way to keep online meanderings safe?  Do it together, working in tandem,  forging an alliance for internet access &  adventuring.

Leave it to the experts, the ones who have mastered the theory of aging, who understand it through spread sheets & data mining, and you get the too-often impersonal, depersonalizing support that hallmarks today's approach to aging, the methods that work on paper but fail to help someone be the best, most exuberant version of themselves at this any given moment.  

Let the inspired amateurs give it a go, drawing from real-life experience ways to support without smothering, to uplift rather than manage, to reflect back to beloved elders the vibrant energies & empowering presence that grace our lives.

It takes a community to craft environments where olders can step into glorious elderhood.  Let's get cracking!