While much remains to be done, communities around the country are using information and communications technologies to fight poverty and social isolation. Here, we highlight just a handful of projects that demonstrate the potential for creating new markets for small enterprise, providing job training programs, establishing after-school enrichment programs for at-risk youth, and supporting community organizations as information content providers.

Using technology to support community-based industry: ACENet

Citizens in Appalachia are using interactive technologies to tie their communities into the new world economy. The Appalachian Community Economic Network, or ACENet, was started in 1985 to help small businesses in the impoverished rural area find new markets. With ACENet's help, more than 20 entrepreneurs have found customers through the Public WebMarket, a project orchestrated by the Center for Civic Networking. To help small businesses get started, ACENet has developed a computer loan program. Beneficiaries include the Runges, owners of a mom-and-pop machine shop operation with three employees, who were able to increase their profitability with a computer leased from ACENet and purchase their own, more sophisticated computer system. Similarly, three women living in rural West Virginia used a computer leased from ACENet to coordinate shipping and distribution for a network of 40 home-based knitters. The network, in partnership with a larger company, uses the Internet to receive orders for custom knitwear from all over the world. Another entrepreneur, a mother with four children, receives email orders from around the world for herbs she grows.

Beginning in the fall of 1997, ACENet set out to train 18 students in the use of technology, entrepreneurship, basic workplace skills, and how to be a consultant. At the end of the year, the students will either own or work at a technology consulting and training facility, or they may decide to move on to higher education in order to further their technology skills.

Training 20th-century citizens for 21st-century jobs: The South Bristol Learning Network

People are not "disadvantaged," argues John O'Hara. They are "dislocated from the creation of wealth." What's more, he adds, "if they do not become involved in the creation of digital wealth, they will become even more dislocated."

O'Hara, who believes that "digital wealth" will be the most valued commodity in the global economy, secured a $1 million challenge grant from the British government in 1993 to establish the South Bristol Learning Network (SBLN) as a private nonprofit organization dedicated to creating an advanced information infrastructure. Dislocation was readily apparent in South Bristol, which had lost more than 40,000 jobs in the 1980s.

SBLN began by training 50 long-term unemployed South Bristol residents in information technologies, including email, database creation, web page development, CD-ROMs, business marketing, and the Internet. Once trained, the staff went into the community and evaluated 300 local education groups, community centers, and businesses to assess their information needs and better understand how to create a local information society. From these assessments, SBLN developed a plan to raise the community's awareness of information technologies, provide training, and build partnerships. In the process, they created a market for the trainers' new skills. SBLN staff went on to run skill workshops, provide technical services for local businesses, and give presentations about the Internet and information technologies. Of the 50 staffers originally hired, only seven have returned to the unemployment rolls.

O'Hara now heads the CyberSkills Workshops, dedicated to replicating the design and success of SBLN elsewhere in England, Europe, and the United States. More than 10,000 people representing 1,200 organizations have participated in the workshops. The South Bristol Learning Network model is being applied in Burlington, Vermont, at the Old North End Community/Technology Center, a project of Chittenden Community Television (CCTV) headed by CCTV's executive director Lauren-Glenn Davitian. CCTV and the city of Burlington started ONE C/TC to serve as a community media center and a local center for technology training. Like the South Bristol Learning Network, ONE C/TC recruits disenfranchised community members to serve as trainers and staff. More recently, it began focusing more on providing job training and information on how to develop small businesses.

A trusted service provider incorporates technology into its programs: United Neighborhood Houses of New York

Settlement houses provide Head Start programs, health education, job training, teen counseling, music, drama, language classes, and much more to at least half a million of New York City's residents. So it was a safe bet that if the settlement houses made the Internet available, people would show up and they have.

The United Neighborhood Houses of New York (UNH), an umbrella organization formed to help the settlement movement participate in social reform efforts, launched its Information Technology Initiative in 1991 with two overarching goals: to consolidate recordkeeping among settlement house programs so that caseworkers could spend more time meeting with their clients and coordinating services with other nearby organizations, and to provide safe, supportive, friendly telecommunications-based resources for community use. According to technology training coordinator Michael Roberts, UNH has helped nine settlement houses establish computer networks and get Internet access. Each of these houses has created "neighborhood-based family rooms" as spaces for community members to use computers.

The settlement houses introduce community members to technology by incorporating computers into other programs. After-school tutors for children now use educational software, for example, and job training workshops use computer databases. More than 29 settlement house programs have integrated computers into their services.

Maxine Rockoff, who launched the program, recalls one group of 10 parents of children who were enrolled in Head Start programs at UNH. Six did not speak English, and none had ever used a computer before. Ten minutes after starting their first computer class, they were working in pairs and surfing the World Wide Web. One pair found an Ecuadorian website in Spanish that posted local newspapers and scores from regional soccer games. Another woman was so inspired by the session she signed up for a course in English as a second language.

Community demand for computer time has been heavy. Melissa Nieves, the librarian at a settlement house known as the University Settlement, says there is a long waiting list to use the 10 multimedia stations in the computer lab.

UNH currently is concentrating on training staff in business, email, and Internet applications so that the settlement houses can be sure that their clients are getting the most out of the resources provided to them. UNH family rooms are understaffed, but that is a problem that increased funding can easily solve. The big question, according to Roberts, is not simply "how do you weave technology into existing programs, but once you have, how do you assess if it's working?"

Rockoff, meanwhile, now advises the city of New York on how it can streamline its administrative requirements of service providers. In a recent interview, Rockoff reported that "the Settlement created great places for the community to learn about technology, but we didn't succeed as much as we wanted in reducing the paperwork load on the settlement houses."

Public institutions increasing access: Union City Schools and Libraries Online!

Many schools and libraries are using their technology facilities and their expertise in teaching to help communities gain skill with information technologies. Examples of this include the Union City School District in New Jersey and the libraries participating in the Libraries Online! initiative, which became the basis of the Gates Library Foundation.

Union City's school reform effort, supported by Bell Atlantic's donations of technology and technical support, has been one of the most successful and widely reported public-private educational technology partnerships. In 1989, Union City schools were about to be taken over by the state because of students' poor academic performance. Then the school district adopted several reforms, including revision of its curriculum. The district formed a partnership with Bell Atlantic so that the Christopher Columbus Intermediate School, formed in 1993 to reduce overcrowding in other schools, would receive multimedia-on-demand interactive applications. All Christopher Columbus students and teachers were provided with computers to use at home.

According to a 1994 report prepared by the Education Development Center, a nonprofit research organization, student scores on achievement tests increased dramatically throughout the district after the school reform plans were implemented, with scores at Christopher Columbus topping the district average.

Parents as well as students have benefited. Union City has been running a Parent University in which students and their parents sign up for classes on such topics as family math and family science. Parents can take English as a second language and computer classes. Adriana Burke, the Parent University coordinator, reports that these programs have been an overwhelming success. "The parents see how we are doing a good job with their children," she says. "They see how much the children use computers, and they want to get involved." She says the program has inspired many parents to go back to school to improve their workplace skills.

Libraries Online!, a joint project of Microsoft Corporation, the American Library Association, and the Center for Technology in the Public Library, was created to increase Internet access to underserved communities through local libraries. Initially, nine library systems in the United States received staff training, computer hardware, and cash grants worth $3 million. Participants included Charlotte-Mecklenberg County, North Carolina; Baltimore County, Maryland; the Mississippi Library Commission; the State Library of South Dakota; Brooklyn, New York; Tucson-Pima County, Arizona; Los Angeles, California; and Seattle and Pend Oreille County, Washington. Each of these library systems offered training and support to small businesses, families, and students who were not likely to have access.

According to an outside evaluation, the time and money invested in the program had been put to good use. Of all respondents, 98 percent stated that they would return to the library to use the computers again, 83 percent said that they "had accomplished the task they had set out to do," and 62 percent said that they would "take advantage of learning more about computers now that they have access in the library." Fully 87 percent of users surveyed stated that they did not have Internet access at home.

The success of the Libraries Online! program prompted Microsoft chair Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda French Gates, to create The Gates Library Foundation in June 1997. The new foundation will spend $200 million over five years to help public libraries, primarily those in low-income areas, gain Internet access. Microsoft will supply an additional $200 million of software for the foundation to give away. The foundation also will provide training and support for library staff. It hopes to work with half of the 17,000 libraries in the United States and Canada. Gates stated that his vision is that "people will take for granted that you can walk into your local library, get the latest book, and sit down at a computer." The first round of grants, announced in early 1998, will benefit more than 1,000 libraries, including 95 percent of the public libraries in Alabama, the foundation's first state partner.

Providing support and information for community technology centers: CTCNet

Community Technology Centers' Network (CTCNet) grew out of the Playing to Win storefront access centers founded by Toni Stone, a high school math teacher. CTCNet is composed of more than 250 computer access centers throughout the United States and Europe. All are committed to work toward a society where each member is "equitably empowered by technology skills and usage." CTCNet sponsors an annual conference, and six times a year it publishes a news update describing activities at member organizations, analyses of relevant policy developments, and discussions of funding, software, and partnership possibilities. Members also receive a start-up manual to help them work through the challenges of starting and maintaining a technology center. Regional CTCNet coordinators provide technical assistance to local centers. CTCNet has been working closely with the Department of Housing and Urban Development on the Neighborhood Networks initiative, and many neighborhood networks will become members of CTCNet. Also in the works are sites sponsored by the National Urban League and Bell Atlantic. Many of the initiatives discussed in this report are CTCNet members.

Using technology to strengthen neighborhood communications: The AFN-Neighborhood Network and MUSIC/LUV

The AFN-Neighborhood Network is a joint project of the Austin Free-Net (AFN), the Austin Learning Academy (ALA), and the 21st Century Project at the University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) Graduate Program in Public Policy. Together, the partners are studying the theoretical and the practical side of increasing access in Austin. A grant from the National Science Foundation supports eight graduate students and two faculty members who are studying how best to implement a community access project. Their findings have led to the Austin Access Model, a plan in which researchers and community members will develop community computer networks in six areas of Austin. Each network will offer training, neighborhood public access sites, and links to the AFN.

The 21st Century Project and the ALA received a $248,000 TIIAP matching grant to create the first community network in a roughly five-block section of East Austin known as the 11th and 12th Street Corridor. Most of East Austin's 70,000 resident are poor, and many are non-English-speaking.

Families participating in ALA classes on technology, English as a second language, or parenting are working with students in the LBJ program to design the AFN-Neighborhood Network. The development of the network will take place in conjunction with the implementation of a $9 million redevelopment grant for the areas from HUD. The content will be developed specifically for and by the region by local nonprofits, organizations, and businesses.

Linking Up Villages (LUV) is a Boston-based project designed to reinvigorate communities through local electronic bulletin boards and software called Multi-User Sessions in Community (MUSIC). "The LUV motto is, rather than focusing on National Information Infrastructure, to us, NII is really about Neighborhood Information Infrastructure," says Alan Shaw, president of MUSIC, Inc., the for-profit counterpart to LUV.

Shaw designed the MUSIC software a few years ago at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. It enables participants to create an online version of their communities, complete with "buildings" and, within the buildings, "rooms." Subject to rules adopted by individual communities, individuals can "stroll" through this graphical "virtual neighborhood," obtain information on community services and activities, make their own contributions to the database, participate in live "chat" groups, or engage in sustained discussions through various community forums. All that's needed is a computer and a modem.

In Dorchester, a working-class Boston neighborhood, neighbors who got together online formed a food co-op, a neighborhood watch, and a community newsletter. In Newark, New Jersey, where a TIIAP grant helped LUV install a more extensive system, neighbors have put together a database on adult education programs, an employment hotline, a "political action" room, and discussion groups on everything from AIDS to recipes. Some local doctors have come online to answer health questions.

Although LUV primarily operates in Newark, its sphere of influence has been expanding. LUV's programs in Boston include a TIIAP grant to collaborate with the Boston Public Schools for a project, called Networking for Student Success, which will connect six Boston high schools and five community-based organizations and business partners, as well as the establishment of a web-based community safety network, called Citizens For Safety. In San Francisco, LUV is working with AT&T and the Greenlining Institute on The Signature Learning Project, which will connect parents whose children are in elementary school with the school's teachers and administrators. The families involved in The Signature Learning Project will receive MUSIC software in addition to the home computers needed to run it. In its Cincinnati project, LUV is teaming up with the Urban League of Greater Cincinnati and MYCOM in order to establish community network access centers, called Cybervillages, in the Cincinnati area.

LUV gives away its software to needy communities, and provides technical and start-up consultations for about $2,500. The big cost for a community wanting to develop a system is the computers. An $8,000 grant from the Wood Foundation helped put computers into a dozen neighborhoods in Boston. TIIAP provided $106,000 to help the Newark community purchase 35 computers and pay other start-up costs. LUV encourages communities to put computers in libraries and other public access locations and to ask businesses to donate their used computers. In the last two years, LUV has made great strides to ensure that all communities could reap the benefits of their MUSIC software. Originally designed to run on Macintosh systems, MUSIC is now available in PC format, can be accessed through LUV Internet connections, and will soon be accessible through an NT server.

Providing underserved youth with enrichment and training for the jobs of the future: Break Away Technologies, Plugged In, and National Urban League Youth Achievement Initiatives

Youth initiatives address a special need in low-income communities. Children and young adults in neighborhoods struggling with persistent poverty have few opportunities for enrichment and positive growth within their immediate neighborhoods, and their opportunities to explore the world outside those boundaries are limited because they lack transportation, money, and trustworthy guides. Just as adults in these communities are isolated from jobs, kids are isolated from opportunities to grow and develop. Interactive technologies and the resources available on the World Wide Web can offer them new learning experiences. Kids who have been shut out can use online services to visit sites that show museums, cities, and wildlife preserves they otherwise would not get to see, and they can communicate with people who live far beyond neighborhood boundaries.

After-school access programs provide enrichment opportunities and training for the jobs and schools of the future. And, just as importantly, they help teenagers constructively fill the otherwise unstructured period between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. (Research done at the request of the California State Legislature, for example, has revealed that the majority of teen pregnancies are conceived in this time period.)

In most communities, crime committed by youth is growing faster than most other types of crime, according to Steve Snow, director of Charlotte's Web, the community access network in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Young people see less and less reason to play by the rules," he argues. "If young people are not engaged in society (and electronic technology is part of a matrix of key interventions needed), then we won't be able to build the walls in the nation's suburbs high enough."

Break Away Technologies proves the value of youth initiatives. Created by Joseph Loeb and run originally out of his garage, it now has a 15,000-square-foot space in the Crenshaw Corridor, an ethnically diverse, inner-city neighborhood in Los Angeles. Break Away has about 100 computers primarily Pentiums, many of which were donated by Microsoft. The center is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. Each day, about 400 elementary school students from the West Los Angeles Christian Academy come to the center for workshops. Each afternoon, about 50 teens wander in to take classes and surf the Internet. On Fridays and Saturdays, classes and services are available for adult learners.

Break Away also works with groups in the community. A teen development group, Rites of Passage, comes in for classes, as do various kids living in group homes. Break Away leads young people through a series of technology courses, each emphasizing character development and personal responsibility, as well as technology. As students advance through computer classes, they take on more responsibility, working first as study partners and then as mentors.

Loeb remembers one of the participants: "A young lady, probably about 22 or 23, came to Break Away when it was still in my garage to learn computer programming to try to get a job. She had no experience with computers. So she learned some programming, which back then was Lotus, and then got a job at Sony. She's still there today and is doing very well." Loeb says the center seeks to make students "visible examples of leadership in the community." While computers aren't essential in achieving that goal, the technology component of the program also helps prepare youths for the labor market. "If someone is computer literate and well-mannered, then he can go anywhere and be comfortable," says Loeb.

Plugged In, Inc. works to develop self-esteem and leadership qualities in young people in a similar style to Break Away. Open for four years now, Plugged In is based in a storefront between a check-cashing center and a boarded-up store on one of the main roads through East Palo Alto. It offers 30 different classes, ranging from beginning Macintosh, desktop publishing, and web page design, to virtual cross-country trips. The Center is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. It has about 35 computers and a staff of 10 people.

Most of the classes Plugged In offers are in partnership with local groups who bring in their clients. For example, Free At Last, a drug recovery center across the street, offers Plugged In's services to its clients.

Several teens, who started working with Plugged In during the 1996 Youth Employment Program, now run an after-school program for elementary school children between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. each day. The younger kids can get help on homework, play on the computers, and surf the Net, or work on arts and crafts. From 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., teenagers come in to take classes or work on projects.

Teens who have completed Plugged In classes run Plugged In Enterprises, a for-profit arm of Plugged In. This business includes a community drop-in center, which provides staff and support if someone walks in and needs help with a resume, designing and printing up a flyer, making copies, or doing research on the Internet. A web design group creates web pages for local businesses, and offers desktop publishing services. Businesses pay up to $1,500 for a site. The teens who create and maintain sites are paid from $7.50 to $15.00 an hour, while the rest of the money earned goes into college funds maintained for them.

Eleven youths, ranging in age from 13 to 18, all graduates of Plugged In courses, participated in a rigorous three-week team-building and training session and are now monitoring a teen chat channel on America Online. The teens work in two production teams, taking turns researching new topics and moderating online discussions.

Aside from its money-making activities, Plugged In receives its funding from private corporations and federal funds.

The National Urban League has also stepped up its focus on youth achievement initiatives. While the Urban League's first technology-based center opened in Los Angeles in 1968, early work focused on adult learners and used mainframe computers for COBOL programming, data entry, and system maintenance. More recent initiatives are networked and include information and workforce literacy programs for children and adults. They also provide curriculum-based and non-structured community-based access to the Internet. Some 30 Urban League affiliates have "Technology Education and Access" (TEAC) centers in cities such as Seattle, Newark, Sacramento, and Los Angeles. The League aims to create 115 of these centers. B. Keith Fulton, director of the League's technology center initiative, says the goal is to create "a safe place for young people and caring adults to come after school hours and on Saturdays to explore state-of-the-art technology in a supportive environment." The centers offer classes if participants want to develop a specific set of skills, but they also welcome youth and adults who simply want to drop in to explore on their own.

"Technology can even the playing field," says Milton J. Little, Jr., the League's executive vice president and chief operating officer. "It's changing the nature of interactions, and our young people need to be ready." Fulton adds, "the Information Age is spawning a new basic information literacy and all of our children must learn to access, interpret, and respond to information."

In 1996, Bell Atlantic provided $1 million to help the National Urban League to create two high-tech access centers in Boston, Massachusetts and Binghamton, New York. In 1997, the National Urban League won a TIIAP grant to expand its technology center initiative into Newark, New Jersey, and Baltimore, Maryland. The Microsoft Corporation named the League one of three recipients of its "1997 Nonprofit Technology Leadership Grants" and donated $2.5 million in software. The League is using this software to put all of its 115 affiliates on a common applications platform. League affiliates in Tennessee, North Carolina, Ohio, New Jersey, and Washington are also running technology-based initiatives for youth and adults. As Milton Little sees it, these efforts continue a longstanding Urban League tradition. "Eighty-eight years ago, the National Urban League was founded to help African Americans migrating from the rural south to the urban north," he notes. "Now, our country is experiencing a societal transformation again, but this time with global implications and unparalleled opportunities."

Fulton is hopeful about the future. "We know how to introduce information and communications technologies into low-income communities," he says. "The only remaining question is whether we as a society are going to make enough of an investment in underserved communities to make the necessary program and policy connections."

Last updated: 7 July 1998 jss
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