Program aiming to bridge Digital Divide works

From...

March 29, 2000
Web posted at: 8:17 a.m. EST (1317 GMT)

by Bernhard Warner

(IDG) -- It's barely 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday morning in the South Bronx, one of New York's poorest neighborhoods. On the second floor of the Kipp Academy -- a typical New York City public middle school where English compositions and math tests decorate the hallways -- some 30 kids and their parents have formed a line, two and three wide. And, at the front of the line each family gets an envelope. Inside the envelope is a slip of paper with an e-mail address. Clutching their envelopes, the families split off into different classrooms for the morning's lesson.

The families are part of a program run by New York-based Computers for Youth, a nonprofit group working to provide poor families in the region with the tools and the knowledge to use the Internet.

Elisabeth Stock, executive director of CFY, explains that the organization chose to come to this public school composed of mainly black and Hispanic students because the kids are poor -- 95 percent qualify for the federally subsidized free-lunch program. Armed with volunteers and old computers, CFY provides the kids with training to get online. "We stay with a school for the entire school year," Stock explains. "Then we move on so we can spread our good deeds as far and wide as we can."

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Classes start at the beginning, with how to turn on a computer. They then delve into the ABCs of surfing the Web. Students who sit through the three-and-a-half-hour session get to keep their computers -- used Pentiums donated by city law firms, banks and brokerage houses -- and get three months of free Internet and e-mail access.

Incorporated in 1997 and backed by a variety of foundations, private companies and government agencies -- including CitiGroup Foundation, Home Box Office and the U.S. Department of Education -- CFY has assigned itself the task of equipping kids with what they need to access the Web, one school at a time.

One of the students in the CFY program is Edward Bostic. For a 13-year-old growing up in Harlem and going to school across the river in the Bronx, Edward has big ambitions. Throughout his introductory computer lesson he's been on the edge of his seat. He can't wait till they get to the part about surfing the Web. His mother, Melissa Bostic, sits beside him. She's anxious to get on the Net, too.

Figuring out how to e-mail friends and relatives, she says, is her top priority. "And then that Priceline thing," she says. "I want to save money on groceries."

Melissa is also optimistic that the new computer will be Edward's ticket out of the South Bronx. "He wants two careers," she says, loud enough for her son to hear. "To be a lawyer, to defend the little people, the people who can't afford it. And to be a doctor, curing cancer."

Edward has simpler plans for his first Web foray. He wants to read more about Dragon Ball Z, the Japanese comic book that, like Pokemon, has been turned into a cartoon and a trading-card phenomenon among school kids around the U.S.

A few weeks later, with his computer back home, Edward has uncovered a horde of Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z sites. But he's also used the Internet to research and write a report about J.K. Rowling, author of the popular kids' book series Harry Potter. His Net work earned him extra credit.

Altogether Edward spends a couple of hours a week on the Web and a few more e-mailing friends. (If he finishes his morning chores early, his mom says, he's allowed to rack up as many as four hours online on Saturdays.) Edward isn't sure but he thinks he's one of the few kids in his neighborhood who has a computer at home. His evidence: "Most of them just hang out on the corner doing nothing," he says. "If they had computers I think they'd be in the house more."

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