News

Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Cáritas Coimbra worked with its users to find solutions to combat distance and prevent the interruption of the innovation activities. Thus, Caritas Coimbra brought together 14 people residing in the Sagrada Família Residential Unit, operating in Cabreira, Góis, and Casa S. José, in Coimbra, in two groups to participate in the co-creation sessions of the Pharaon project.

Cáritas Coimbra is participating in the international project Pharaon, which intends to test some digital services and applications that may be distributed and used by older adults, in order to improve their independence, security and capabilities. One way to achieve this goal is to reinforce community support resources (as is the case with formal and informal caregivers) to the most vulnerable groups of older adults.

The end users of these technologies have to be involved from the outset in the project, so that the technologies developed are not out of step with the real needs of those who will actually use them. With the format of small meetings (focus group), the participants of the two Residential Units of Cáritas Coimbra gave their opinions on three technologies/services that are part of the project. They are the Social Incubator, the Campus of Caregivers and an application on the City and Nature. The collaborators of the Residential Units promoted the sessions that were accompanied by the project’s Innovation team, through video call. The responses of the participants were truly enriching and very important for this initial collection of requirements.

The Pharaon consortium is constituted by 42 European entities and funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program.