Last Updated on 7 July 2020 by Colette
AD – Commissioned content for Plusnet
Scouting has been part of our lives as a family for a few years now – as a child I was in the Brownies and later the Guides so I knew I wanted my own children to be part of the Scouting community in our local area. Ben started Beavers at six and is now due to start Scouts fairly soon, the girls are following in his footsteps with Chloe at Cubs and Amy starting Beavers just this month.
Their weekly meetings aren’t just a fun way to spend an hour or so with friends but actually a place where they learn life skills, face challenges and discover more about the world around them. Ben and Chloe have an array of badges – both ones which they’ve earned within the Cubs setting and ones which they’ve had to under take additional activities for at home. (I believe Ben is the only Cub in his pack to hold the Cycling badge at present!)
This autumn, Plusnet have partnered with Scouts to look at real world challenges and how tech can be used to work on the issues that young people care about. Since 1907, the motto within the Scouting movement has been “Be Prepared” so it makes perfect sense that this collaboration with Plusnet is all about preparing for the future and ensuring that our children and young people have the digital skills and know-how to make the most of the tech available to them. Scouts who attended the camp received a special, limited edition Plusnet x Scouts blanket badge.
Preparing for the Future is a partnership with Scouts to enable young people to find solutions to issues they face using technology.
At times, teens and the internet get a bad rap. However, Plusnet, a national internet provider, wants to show how the internet can be a force for good and can enable positive change.
Earlier in November, Plusnet held a one-off ‘Preparing for the Future’ digital camp. The purpose of the digital camp was to launch and celebrate the partnership with Scouts and as such Scouts from across the UK were invited to take part in a hackathon to tackle six social issues that matter most to young people today.
The issues were:
Protecting the environment (with WWF)
Ending homelessness (with Crisis)
Supporting refugees and displaced children (with Save the Children)
Better mental health for all (with Mind)
Understanding disability (with the National Autistic Society)
Kindness in every community (with the British Red Cross)
(you can also click on each of the issues to learn more about them through videos)
At the event, Scouts used code (computer programming) to come up with solutions to these problems – but there are plenty of ways we can use the internet to find solutions of our own too – you don’t have to be a Scouting family to get involved. To allow families and children across the UK to get involved too, Plusnet & Scouts have put together a “Hack at Home” kit which you can downloaded HERE to give you ideas on how to get started.
What is a Hackathon?
A hackathon is where individuals or groups acknowledge a problem and work on building and creating a solution for the problem. This is usually done through computer coding, but can be done in other ways too – like art, writing or designing.
Once you have identified the issue you want to solve, or something you wish to create, the Hack at Home pack gives you a step by step guide to help you work through and find a solution – for example it talks about setting realistic goals, considering who the audience is, how and when it will work.
Ending Homelessness
Chloe has long since struggled with the idea of homelessness – the fact that some people don’t have somewhere warm and safe to live, a means to earn money or people to care for them doesn’t make sense to her. She wants to help every homeless person we see either by buying them a hot drink or giving them cash. We’ve talked a lot over the years about how sometimes handing someone money isn’t always the best solution (she couldn’t understand why they then wouldn’t just save up to buy a house – we’ve obviously discussed since that it’s not that simple!) and that perhaps donating to or working with charities who can help in a wider sense might be a better, more productive option.
In terms of using tech and coding to “fix” this problem, this is a little beyond our capabilities right now however this doesn’t mean we can’t use the internet to help us find creative solutions. Chloe is a passionate writer and I knew that she would be happy to write about our ideas relating to how we could help the homeless in our local area and beyond.
I recently saw a “warm coat” rack shared on social media – the idea of this was that if you had spare, warm coats that were in good, usable condition, you could add them to the rack – and if you needed a coat? Well then you were free to take one. I loved the idea of this as I know that myself and my children often end up with spare coats (mainly as a result of my work) – at present they are handed down to friends or given to a school where are know there are families in need but for adult coats I often feel there is a gap in terms of what we should do with them and where we can donate them to make sure they are used exactly where they are needed. As such the “honesty” policy of the warm coat rack really appealed to me – you didn’t need to ask if you needed a coat, you didn’t need to “admit” to anyone that you were struggling, you just took what you needed and hopefully, one day, you’d be able to pay the kindness forward yourself.
Chloe and I chatted about this and, with the help of the Plusnet x Scouts Hack at Home pack, we came up with a plan for how a “Warm Coat Rack” might work in our area and what we would need to do next to set the ball rolling.
The Hack at Home pack gave us a step by step guide to solving our problem – not so much by telling us what to do but by asking us questions to guide and scaffold our thinking (and of course this is how the best learning happens!) The Hack at Home pack is full of tips and suggestions for how to organise your time, manage your ideas and create an effective plan of action – all important skills for adult life!
Having been inspired by social media in the first place, we felt it was important to use social media to help us find somewhere to place our “Warm Coat Rack” by researching need and also to promote it – the rack only works if the community are involved – in both donating and making use of the coats. Social media seemed like the perfect tool to spread the message!
Alongside this, Ben used his laptop to create a poster for the “Warm Coat Rack” – explaining what it was and how it worked.
And now it’s over to you
Technology is a huge part of our lives and something our children will have grown up with since birth perfectly placing them to use technology to solve all sorts of challenges within their own lives and those of the wider community.
I’d love to know what issues your young people most care about and whether they have come with the ideas on how they could tackle them?
Don’t forget to visit https://newsroom.plus.net/scouts/ to get involved with Hack at Home and share your own solutions on social media tagging in @plusnet
