Meet the team: Remy, Digital Inclusion & Community Engagement Officer

Firstly, who are you and what’s your role at CAM? 

Hi, I’m Remy and I’m the Digital Inclusion and Community Engagement Officer at CAM. I’ve worked here for just over a year and originally started on our Adviceline before joining our digital inclusion project. 

What does a typical day look like in your role? 

What I love about my role is that every day is different. Some days I might be in the office, others I could be out doing community outreach. I do a lot of work with our external partners and spend a lot of time going out into the community, building relationships and seeing how we can best use our services together. We also work closely with the digital inclusion team at Manchester City Council. 

What are some of the projects you’re currently working on? 

Recently I’ve worked to help establish our community advice project, through our digital drop ins in community venues. Clients can show up and access our advice digitally by using a computer. My role was liaising with the venues to get us set up and ensure clients could access our services. 

The project I’m most excited to be working on is our new advice van. We launched the project earlier this month and we’ll be taking it out on the road soon. It’s personally been very exciting to oversee the project and I’ve learnt a lot of new skills along the way. 

We’ll be working with a lot of our existing partners but also looking to reach out to new partners we haven’t worked with before. I’m excited to push the project forward and see our services better integrated into the community, so we can help everyone who needs us. 

Why will the advice van be so important to Manchester communities? 

There’s a big demographic of people who might not be aware of the services that are available to them. For example, a lot of people who visit community libraries will be aware of our services and what we offer. However, there’s also a lot of people who visit football matches, bingo halls, supermarkets, who might not be aware of the support that’s out there. 

The best thing about the advice van is how versatile it is, meaning we can visit all of these places and reach people we might not have reached before. We can also reach people at an early prevention stage, before their situation becomes too serious. The van is also equipped with tablets and wi-fi connectivity, allowing us to empower people with the digital skills and confidence they need to access information and solve their problems going forwards.