Home 2 Home and Carpenters Connect

Home 2 Home and Carpenters Connect offer a radical solution to the challenges of getting disadvantaged communities on line and encouraging community activity and participation.

Anyone living in the tower blocks of the Carpenter’s Estate in Stratford, East London can now use their television as a PC and see and hear what’s going on in the community around them.

As part of the DfES Wired up Communities programme, three tower blocks and low rise flats on the estate have been cabled up with ‘Cat 5’ wiring capable of carrying large quantities of information at high speed. Locally based servers have created a broadband intranet across the estate.

Using a standard set top box, a standard TV remote and a wireless keyboard the system offers

· Email.

· Internet (free and unlimited).

· National and local information services (Start Here, NHS Direct, Newham Life).

· Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

· Education software (Plato, Encarta encyclopaedia).

· Real time games (Solitaire, Monkey Kong, Quake, Tux Racer).

· Free-to-air digital TV.

· Home 2 Home videos and web pages.

Home 2 Home is a local television channel for the estate. All programmes are produced by a locally based production team, working with local residents, using locally installed equipment. Programmes have been made about local issues and local people, often involving local residents in production

· Meet the Neighbours – a video album of the estate.

· Down Carpenters’ Way – a history of the estate told by its older residents.

· Living the High Life – an investigation into problems with local tower blocks.

· Masterplanners – an information service on a major planning consultation project on the estate.

The Home 2 Home Channel has encouraged people to use the Carpenters Connect system. It has stimulated and strengthened community life, encouraging participation in local initiatives and debates. It is now transforming itself into a self-supporting community enterprise providing video production services to the Newham area.

Technological advances now offer lower cost versions of Carpenters Connect. Home 2 Home can also be delivered using very low cost methods (e.g. community projection).

Home 2 Home and Carpenters Connect have proved so successful that plans for the new Stratford City now specify that it will be a wired up community with its own Home 2 Home service.

For more information contact:

Richard Stubbs Simon Gallimore Rick Smith

020 7366 6330 020 7874 7631 07810 481551

richard.stubbs@newham.net simong@mediatrust.org rick@nyons.co.uk