New Federal and State Grants Help Projects at CAAs in Efforts to Close the Digital Divide
The number of Massachusetts Community Action Agencies (CAAs) that have launched Information Technology (IT) Access and Education Projects for low-income people has grown from two to 10 in less than two years, due to a major MASSCAP initiative. And in recent months many of these projects received two big boosts.
During the summer, the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) responded positively to a MASSCAP request for monies to get three of these new projects off the ground. Then, in October 2001, the U.S. Department of Education's (DOE) Community Technology Centers program granted MASSCAP $262,000 to support five of the projects at CAAs along with the statewide network involving all 10 projects that MASSCAP is building. MASSCAP's proposal was one of 146 from across the nation that DOE decided to fund out of over 1,200 it received. The MASSCAP proposal was one of four from Massachusetts organizations that DOE selected for funding.
The IT Access and Education Projects at CAAs that these two grants will help support include those based at: Tri-CAP (in Malden); North Shore Community Action (in Salem); Greater Lawrence Community Action; Franklin County Community Action; Hampshire Community Action Commission (in the rural Hampshire County hill towns); and Valley Opportunity Council (in Chicopee). The other four, based at Community Action, Inc. in Haverhill, Montachusett Opportunity Council (at several sites in northern Worcester County), Worcester Community Action Council, and Action for Boston for Community Development were among those that received funding through an initial DHCD grant to MASSCAP a year ago. MASSCAP is working with all of these projects to secure additional funding. All 10 projects are participating in a statewide network MASSCAP has organized to allow them to share information and resources.
Each of these projects at Massachusetts CAAs is designed differently and tailored to the needs of the low-income community it serves. MOC's program began in early 2000 with a open-access "cyber cafe" located in the north central industrial town of Fitchburg, and MOC is developing variations of this model in other locations. Tri-CAP's project also is a cyber cafe that opened in May 2001 that has met with immediate and impressive success: by mid-autumn, over 800 low-income residents of the Malden area had become members. It is adding formal training classes this fall, and offers on-site links to job training, education, and employment opportunities. The project in Salem is being organized by a consortium of groups, led by the local CAA, NSCAP, and will be similar to the model in Malden. It will be located in a neighborhood heavily populated by recent immigrants, and will focus on offering computer access and skills while at the same time attempting to overcome language barriers. Another project, based in two small rural communities in the hill towns of western Massachusetts at service sites operated by Hampshire Community Action Commission, will also be "drop-in" centers, and will open later this fall.
Greater Lawrence Community Action's project is aimed at inner city high school-aged youth, in a city where school drop-out rates are high. It will offer both "drop-in" access along with specific training courses--for example, in Web site design.
FCAC's project involves computer classes for parents and children involved in its Head Start Program in predominantly rural Franklin County, in order to make them comfortable using the new technology. Worcester Community Action is operating a basic computer training program for inner city low-income people without other access to computers, the Internet, and training; and its program is linked to its jobs and skills training program.
CAI's project offers open access to computers and instruction to low-income Haverhill area residents in basic computer skills. It also offers direct links to job skills programs. As in several other of the communities these MASSCAP-initiated projects serve, open access to computers and the Internet is very limited in Haverhill, and CAI's center often receives visitors that have been sent there by the local public library, when the demand for computer access is too great for the library to accommodate.
ABCD offers computer classes for low-income people in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, who, after finishing the course, can buy a home computer at very low cost and receive ongoing technical support and help.
All these projects collect data on participation that goes to MASSCAP and are being evaluated by the McCormack Institute for Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts/Boston.
Despite its disappearance from the nightly news in the wake of September 11, the Digital Divide remains an important issue in the nation and in Massachusetts. "Closing the Digital Divide is essential to developing a skilled workforce that can meet the increasing demands of the IT-driven economy that will shape the future of our state and nation," observed Alan Sax, chair of MASSCAP's Information Technology Committee. "We still have a long way to go. These MASSCAP-inspired projects across the state are important yet beginning steps. But they do offer opportunities-- and hope--to low-income people who want to improve their skills, which we believe will lead them to better jobs, more education, and a brighter future."
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