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Young Birmingham care home residents get to surf the net
12 August 2003
A cyber café for young physically disabled residents is officially being opened this Thursday at 2pm in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Members of the Birmingham Royal Ballet will join residents, relatives, staff and guests to open Bupa's Amberley Court Nursing Home's new 'Penguin Cyber Café', which is named after one of Birmingham Royal Ballet's most popular ballets - 'Still Life at the Penguin Café'.
The local community and Bupa staff have helped Amberley Court convert an upstairs lounge into a cyber café to give its young physically disabled residents access to PCs and the Internet. Many of the residents attend college or day centres during the day and need access to computers when they return to the home. Amberley Court has worked closely with the charity AbilityNet for specialist advice on computing for the disabled, including disability assessments and training sessions. Residents will have access to four computers, a printer, a scanner and Internet and email services within the cyber café.
Howard McCormack, home manager at Bupa's Amberley Court Nursing Home, said: "Everyone at the home was thrilled when we were chosen for the café and we are already certain of the benefits our residents will gain from it. We must thank everyone that has been involved as the project has been a joint effort between many people from Bupa and the local community and we are so pleased with the finished product. We hope to roll out the cyber cafes in more of our homes in the near future."
The launch will also coincide with the opening of the home's new 'grill room', a converted dining room and satellite kitchen. The 'grill room' will offer healthy 'fast food' more appealing to the younger residents, as well as flexible meal times for those residents who are out during the day.
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