In Lyon, France Handicap international teaches the handicapped how to use new technology. The Icom center gives computer learning workshops free of charge.

                    

In Lyon, France Handicap international teaches the handicapped how to use new technology. The Icom center gives computer learning workshops free of charge.
The first members have already arrived and are impatient to use the computers. Martine who moves around in a wheelchair wants to troubleshoot an issue she has with her mail software.   Before she starts looking on the net to find a solution, she gets some advice from Bernard who is in charge of today’s workshop.  Patrick wants to check to see if his looking for work ad was published on the net because he would like his next job to be involved with the net. As for Jacques who leans on his walking sticks and looks like an old lorry driver. He’s  being coming to Icom for three years now.  At the beginning he completely ignored computing. Well today, he’s very proud to show us his illustrated poems, soft gymnastics programme which he made himself, printed pages he’s done on Inuit research and games of chess he’s played online etc “in fact so many things we’ve done here that we don’t even know that we’ve done them” he told us. And the more we do the more we want to continue. We learn something new all the time”. Jacques comes to Icom twice a week.  The internet has become essential for him. “ I’ve got a handicap which is going to get worse. Today I can get around easily. But tomorrow I will probably be confined to my house. So no question of standing by and doing nothing! With internet I’m sure I’ll be able to occupy myself and not feel totally alone!”

Francoise can’t work anymore because she has heart problems. She has just learned how to use a computer without any issues. “there’s one in the house but it belongs to my daughter. I’m too afraid to use it because I might delete important documents due to the lack of computer knowledge. Here. I feel confident!”
As day  goes by, newcomers join the group that are already there. They exchange a couple of words with each other before they take their place in front of the computers.

                                                         “The person who can’t use a pen can type, the person that can’t talk can express themselves.”

Annabelle and Laurent who sit beside each other and both suffer from a heavy handicap and  are sent by a specialised centre. Laurent is just here to play. The adolescent really goes for it as he ploughs his virtual racing car into walls and other vechicals. 
Annabelle, for her part starts working on a ludo-educatif softwear to improve her knowledge of sounds and letters.  She uses a trackball fixed to a photographic  arm and  with the aide of a virtual keyboard she writes a small journal. The subject of interests is the strike in the local hospital because here brothers are going to have children. She moves with difficulty and she can’t really express herself but she is making head way in her work. Celine who is  charge of the reception tell us that “it is important for her because it talks about her life too”.
In hospital at the same time
In adjoining rooms, Abdelmalek and Ismael  who work at the centre are having a video conferences. Both of them are talking to patients in hospital in the Lyon area who are learning to use the internet. The people who run Icom, say that computers should help the handicapped fell more comfortable in society. Thanks to computers the person who finds it difficult to write with a pen can type a text, the person who can’t talk can express themselves and above all to find a way to forget a little their own hardships. In giving them technology prosthetics instead of bamboo prosthetics, Handicap International stays clearly fixed on what it is doing, while the centre stays open. Nobody questions it’s ligitamicty and its utility, but it’s more and more difficult  to get subventions that will keep the centre open.

Story by Nathalie Bloch Sitbon

 Celine, who is responsible for the reception area and the members of the center, with Laurent plays his heart out with a car video game. Thanks to a joystick fixed to a table, he is able to control his movements and stay on the racetrack.

The Icom team from left to right.
Stephanie(technology and communication) Bernard(webmaster teacher)

Yvan(Network specialist) Celine (in charge of the reception and the students)

Guy (ergotherapist)and Jacaues who is deputy director.

Thanks to a trackball fixed onto a photographic arm and with the help of a virtual keyboard, Annabelle is able to make a “little newspaper”, she gathers information from the net regarding the strike in the local hospital.