A TRUSTEE of a Basingstoke charity is designing a smartphone application for people with learning disabilities.

IT worker Somay Nakhal believes the new app will be the first of its kind in the world.

Mr Nakhal is a trustee of The Cafe Project, a charity set up in November last year to offer supported training and employment opportunities to people with learning |disabilities, through its |community cafe at The Dome, in Brighton Hill.

Mr Nakhal, 35, hopes the app will be ready in a few months.

He said: “We are looking at creating it for android and |i-Phones and it will offer information about how to carry out a basic task.

“It could be something very simple like making a cup of coffee and it will go through how to do that, step by step. But it could be anything and could be used by those at The Cafe Project in terms of training, or something related to catering.

“It’s to help them organise their daily work and tasks. I don’t think there are any other similar ideas out there – this is the first.”

The Cafe Project is also helping its students engage with new technology by allowing them to help run a newly- launched website, which went live on April 29.

The idea is to boost the |students’ IT skills by using the website to promote the cafe locally through social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and update it with new information.

Councillor David Leeks, the mayor of Basingstoke and Deane, is today due to visit The Cafe Project to see how the new website is benefiting students.

For more information, visit thecafeproject.co.uk.