Free web offer for technophobes

Potential web users are being offered free services to get them up and running on the internet.

More than 60 centres in the West Midlands are offering their free services to people who want to get online but do not know where to start.

Click here for the list of local centres

While many take the internet for granted, for one in three people in the West Midlands it is still unknown territory.

The myguide service, run by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), aims to help people who insist the internet is not for them to see the benefits it can bring their lives.

It might be saving them from queuing up at the post office for their tax disc or getting their groceries delivered to their home without having to go to the shops.

The centres are located across the West Midlands region, from Oswestry to Rugby, from Dudley to Stoke on Trent.

It was launched in the West Midlands by DJ Tony Blackburn.

A self-confessed internet addict, he added: "It may be February but it's never too late to make a new year's resolution: get online and see what it can do for you – you won't look back. If I can do it anyone can!"

The myguide scheme is for absolute beginners, "technophobes" and anyone who wants to learn how to use the internet - the easy way.

Victoria Bristow, West Midlands myguide manager explained: "The fact is that doing something new for the first time can be a bit daunting, so the e-buddy challenge is all about helping someone take their first steps online.

"We're encouraging people to be an e-buddy and bring an internet-shy friend along to a myguide centre.

"While staff are on hand to help people out, having the support of an e-buddy can be a real incentive - especially if you can show them all the things you do online that could make their daily lives so much easier.

"We all know someone who thinks they're just not technically minded, and that the internet is all too complicated, when in actual fact myguide makes it incredibly simple."

Staff at myguide centres across the West Midlands currently offer one-to-one support in trying out the internet and sending an email for the first time.

By phoning free on 0800 015 8815, people are given details of their nearest myguide centre, where they can help a friend help themselves by accessing the service.

Already nearly 600 people in the region have phoned the free myguide helpline to find out what internet can offer them.

In the UK, an estimated 13.8m people have still never been online, and 43 per cent of households are not connected to the internet.