Digitally Excluded V2

<h4>Who are you?</h4> You've been made redundant since April 2017 from working as a chef for a local public house and are trying to find a job. Since losing your job as a chef, you have been living on welfare for a few years now. To say it's been difficult living on this amount of money is an understatement and you're so keen to get out of the rut you have placed yourself in. Having no internet in a house that you share with Pippa, your grandmother is difficult because you are unable to stay updated with your journal updates for the job centre or access emails and even stay in touch with friends and family. Your old myPhone is still going but only just on a cheap SIM-only contract which costs £10 a month. The only internet you can access is in your local library or on your phone, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the library has closed which has meant becoming more disconnected with your friends and work coach. Previously, you used to have a laptop prior to losing your job, which would have been your lifeline to regularly stay in touch with friends and family. After being made redundant, your laptop had decided to die, leaving you with limited internet access and contact with your loved ones. Even the mobile phone internet on your SIM-only contract barely lasts half a month, which means you're disconnected from everyone when my allotted data allowance runs out. Most of your friends don't even call you and hardly text back despite living busy lives at work. You would love to have any job that gets you out of the house, you're not fussy about the job role you want to do and enjoy working in a team. <h4>Can you help me become a digitally inclusive member of society?</h4> [[Continue the game]] [[I'm not playing anymore]]

Excellent! Thank you so much. As you have been living without home broadband for what seems forever, it's meant that trying to find a job has been next to impossible unless you go and use the internet from the library. You have been spending most of the £400 on your welfare payment each month on food, energy bills and a cheap SIM-only contract for your phone. However, if you want to get a job, then you will need to be able to install home broadband in your grandmother's house. Your grandmother is reluctant towards having broadband in her house but you tell her that you need to get online at home and not rely on the internet from the library to do all the things you do online. This includes accessing your online journal or word processing software to update your CV and covering letter. <h4>What do you do? </h4> [[Convince your grandmother]] [[Don't bother, it's not worth it]]

You spend half an hour convincing Pippa, your grandmother to install home broadband in her house, going as far to show that it will be used to find a job and keep ourselves connected with other family members online. After much convincing, Pippa gives the go-ahead to install home broadband in her house, but she tells me that it's going to come out of your own pocket. She's also given you a condition that the broadband supplier needs to come from BT1 and nowhere else. <h4> Which broadband provider should I go for? </h4> [[BT1 - Expensive, but fast]] [[Blueyonder - Cheap fibre broadband]] [[Superfly Broadband - Slightly cheaper than BT1, but still expensive]] [[Talk1 - Cheap, but inconsistent]]

You've tried to convince your grandmother to have home broadband installed in your house, but she refused to budge to your numerous requests of getting online at home. Facing a choice of being digitally excluded from society permanently or at least having a lifelong future of being jobless, your hopes of getting a job in the past few years has slowly sapped your motivation to find work. At least, you have never been sanctioned from being on welfare and have done everything my work coach has told me to do in the contract when you first signed up for welfare payments more than three years ago. [[Next ->Heading to the library]]

The stress of being digitally excluded has gotten to you to which you decide to give up living on welfare and the job search altogether. Pippa repeatedly tries to call you on your phone for weeks. She hopes you are okay, but as she has not seen or heard from you since you had a massive argument that is unrelated to having home broadband a few weeks ago. [[The end of the game]]

Makes sense considering Pippa has a BT1 landline in your house that she pays for each month. It is expensive though, the cheapest fibre broadband is £28 a month for 24 months, but if your grandmother is already paying for line rental, then you will need to convince her that you will pay for the entire service that you're getting from BT1. If it means spending a slight chunk out of the welfare money you get each month for fibre broadband from BT1, then so be it! [[Next ->Get BT1 broadband]]

It's cheap and will not take a huge chunk of what you're getting through my welfare payment each month, but your grandmother did say to get the broadband package through BT1. Oh well, after all, you've got to remember that even though there are alternative suppliers around, you have to stick to what your grandmother has requested with getting BT1 broadband. [[Back to the options menu ->Convince your grandmother]]

Your grandmother said to get broadband through BT1 right? This is not BT1 and she has no interest in paying for lots of channels which will be glossed over through the broadband package you recommended to her. Also, paying for a lot of channels you don't watch seems a waste of money considering you only have £400 a month to live on? You only need broadband don't you? [[Back to the options menu ->Convince your grandmother]]

Did you tell yourself that you would never get Talk1 broadband? Your friend who used to have that broadband provider told you of how terrible the customer service and broadband speeds were on Talk1. You are definitely not buying anything from Talk1 anytime soon that's for sure. [[Back to the options menu ->Convince your grandmother]]

<h4>Fibre broadband is coming home! </h4> A week after making the call to get BT1's fibre broadband, a knock on the door is heard throughout the house. You open the door and ask: "Are you the BT1 engineer who will be installing my broadband in my house?" "Yes I am, can I come into the house please?" asks the BT1 engineer. You tell the engineer to come into the house and you show him where the landline is for installing the broadband in Pippa's home. The BT1 engineer tells you if you have the broadband router so he can install the broadband. You hand the router over to the engineer who is working away with getting the broadband sorted in Pippa's house. So many years of frustration with limited access to the internet are about to become a thing of the past for you as the engineer gets to work setting up the internet connection. [[Next ->Installing the broadband]]

<h4> More bad news... </h4> You walk to the library and head onto the computer to access your welfare journal. Accessing the welfare website, your smile turns into complete frustration after reading my latest journal update from my work coach: Despite being on welfare for a few years and having limited success in finding work, I'm afraid I'm going to have to sanction you for not hitting your target of applying for 20 jobs a week. This means you will not be receiving your monthly payment of £400 for the next three months. I'm so sorry for giving you this piece of news but I guess as my job is to get you into work, if you do not complete the targets I set to you as part of the contract you signed with me, then you will be unable to get your monthly welfare payments. You can challenge this appeal in court or accept that you will not be receiving any money from the state for the next three months. Kindest Regards, Department for Welfare and Employment [[Next ->Here we go]]

<h4> That sanction hurt </h4> Heading back from the library, you quickly head to your bedroom and uncontrollably sob onto your pillow after receiving the news of being sanctioned by your work coach. Pippa has no idea how you're feeling right now as she knits away at making a new scarf. You wonder if you're going to be digitally excluded forever as you fall asleep to numb the bad news you've received from your work coach. [[Next -> The next day]]

<h4> Things can only get better </h4> The next day, you wake up and leave the home without saying a word to Pippa. She assumes that you are heading to the library to continue your job search. Pippa repeatedly tries to call you 10 times during the day for an update. She hopes you are okay, but has no idea if you will ever come back home again. [[The end of the game]]

Thank you very much for playing Digitally Excluded. What I wanted to do was try to create a game around what it would be like to be an individual who is digitally excluded from society. The option to install broadband at home or go without home internet access is one many people and families face in the UK. The Good Things Foundation's Blueprint for a 100% Digitally Included UK report found that <a href="https://www.goodthingsfoundation.org/sites/default/files/blueprint-for-a-100-digitally-included-uk-0.pdf" /> nearly a quarter of poor families do not have access at home to broadband or a desktop, laptop or tablet. </a> By creating a game around this subject, it would enable the player to put themselves in the shoes of someone who is living in digital exclusion and is trying to become a digital member of society. Having the aspect of getting a job online would replicate how unemployed people have to navigate the world of having no internet access in their homes to not only get a job, but also access their bank account, pay bills for utilities and book hospital appointments. [[Return to the start of the game->Digitally Excluded]]

You can hardly contain your excitement about having fibre broadband in Pippa's house. The days of constantly going to the library to access the internet are almost coming to an end for you. Three hours later, the BT1 fibre broadband is installed in the house and the phone line is still intact. You and Pippa are very happy at how quickly the broadband has been installed in the house. <style> img { max-width: 100%; max-height: 100%; } </style> <div class="img5"> <img alt="broadband-router" src="https://umarhassan.neocities.org/Images/broadband-router.jpg" /> </div> They thank the engineer for installing the broadband, which makes you and Pippa no longer digitally excluded citizens. However, you remember that you have an appointment at the job centre at 9am tomorrow. [[Next -> Preparation for the job centre appointment]]

<h4>Sanctioned by welfare for the first time</h4> You log onto the welfare website on your phone and find out you've been sanctioned for not applying for the set number of jobs a week allocated by your work coach. As you now have fibre broadband in your home, never will you ever be digitally excluded again, but you fear that you may end up losing your home internet access altogether, plunging you back into digital exclusion. You rush to prepare for your appointment at the job centre by putting together some documents he printed at his local library a few days ago. Time is on the essence as it almost close to bedtime for you. [[Next ->The Job Centre appointment]]

<h4>The next day</h4> <style> img { max-width: 100%; max-height: 100%; } </style> <div class="img6"> <img alt="getting-out-of-bed" src="https://umarhassan.neocities.org/Images/gets-out-of-bed.jpg" /> </div> It's 6am and you get out of bed to prepare for your appointment at the job centre. Your nervous about what the work coach has to say about you after a dismal week of job searching. Pippa wishes you a good day as you leave the house for your 9am appointment with your work coach. It's a sunny day outside, which lifts your spirits as you walk out of Pippa's house to the job centre. [[Next -> Next]]

<h4>Time for my appointment with my work coach </h4> You arrive at the job centre at 8:45am. The work coach calls his name as the clock strikes nine o'clock in the morning. Your work coach asks how you're doing. You tell my work coach that you are feeling much better than you were two weeks ago and that you have accepted the sanction of going without three months of welfare payments. However, your work coach offers you a lifeline. The full-time job is in a factory. You grab this rare opportunity with both hands and accept the interview offer without hesitating. [[Accept the job interview offer ->Yes?]]

You accept the interview offer for a job working in a factory to which the work coach calls the employer to book the appointment for today. 10 minutes later... You are informed that the job interview is taking place at 1pm this afternoon. You're used to having interviews on short notice as it's where your strengths lie due to your years of working in the hospitality sector. The work coach wishes you good luck as you get ready for your job interview at the factory at 1pm today. [[Continued -> The job interview]]

<h4> Today will be the day you will get a job </h4> It's two hours before the interview for the job at the factory and you have already had lunch. Currently, you are heading to the factory for your job interview. You are nervous about this interview as it's the first one you have had in so long. You wonder if you may never get another opportunity like this for a while so you take a deep breath and relax as you head to the factory for your job interview. The time is now 12:45pm as you switch your phone off and head into the factory for your job interview. [[Time for the interview]]

<h4>The job interview </h4> The interviewer calls out your name and you enter the interview room at the factory for this job role. I see you have been working as a chef, what makes you well suited for working in a factory, asks the interviewer? "Working in under pressure environments have always played to my strengths. In my previous job, I used to have to cook on many occasions up to 100 guests at the time, requiring maximum concentration and teamwork to get the meals served. "This means making sure every dish I served to a customer was perfect and with this job as a factory worker, I would use the skills I had acquired from working in hospitality for five years and apply this into the products the company makes in the factory." As the interview continues, the interviewee is so impressed with you that the interviewer makes an offer that you cannot refuse... [[Next->The job offer]]

<h4>I've got a job! </h4> After half an hour, the interview ends and the interviewer is so impressed with you that he decides to offer the factory worker job on the spot. You happily accept the job offer of working in the factory, but the interviewer tells you that this job role starts tomorrow. When you hear that bit of news, you smile and shake the interviewer's hand, ending years of unemployment and digital exclusion. You can finally get that laptop that you've wanted for so long. It feels good that you have a job that can help you buy more infrastructure to continue being able to connect and interact with my friends and family. These dark years are well and truly over for you. [[The end of the game]]