David Jarrold, director, the Blackwood Foundation
The Blackwood Foundation has been awarded almost £10,000 from the Investing In Ideas fund of the Big Lottery to develop a new social media site.
David Jarrold, director of the Blackwood Foundation, told us, “The Blackwood Foundation’s mission is to support and enhance independent living for people with a disability or support need.
“High quality design, in both the home environment and in terms of domestic products, has an enormous impact on independence and quality of life. Similarly, technology systems and devices have the potential to make a huge contribution to independent living as well as having a critical role in bridging the resource gap between support needs and support provision in the future.
“What we have found in discussions with disabled people across Scotland is that they don’t feel that they are sufficiently involved in the development of products or systems. They also feel insufficiently aware of all the products that might be available to them.
“Social media, like Facebook and Twitter, provides a perfect means of bringing designers of domestic appliances and assistive technologies together with people to dramatically improve independent living and quality of life. The key is to engage with people who, along with their friends, family, carers and personal assistants, are the experts in independent living. Their ingenuity and innovation is inspiring and we have to give them a voice and a stake in the development and design process. This will lead to better designs and products and it will improve lives.
“The £9,900 we have been awarded will cover not only the set-up costs of our social media site but also fund two volunteers from ProjectScotland for six months to get the initial content on the site. After that, we believe the site will take on a momentum of its own, involving designers and product users from all over the world.
“Our aim for the Blackwood Foundation is to be a catalyst for innovation, development and improvement.”
A separate charity, the Blackwood Foundation is linked to Margaret Blackwood Housing Association and has a close relationship with the Association’s many hundreds of disabled tenants and support service users. It has also been building connections with the wider community of disabled people.
At the end of 2010 and in partnership with Capability Scotland, the Blackwood Foundation ran a series of design and technology workshops across the Scottish mainland and isles. The findings from the workshops are currently being collated by the University of Glasgow’s Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research and will be published shortly.
You can learn more about the work of the Blackwood Foundation at www.blackwood-foundation.org.uk
Comments
Login and comment using one of your accounts...