Project Description

The Shaw Community of Washington, DC, is one of the most drug-infested, crime-ridden areas in our nation. The See Forever Foundation, in cooperation with three leading non-profits in Shaw, will carry out several innovative programs to expose the neighborhood's elderly to the benefits of new technology and to engage the area's at-risk teens. The goal is that ShawNet, an up-to-date Wide Area Network and web host site for the area's businesses and non-profits, and the Learning Lab, a place where teens and adults can gain access to computers and technology training, will help revitalize this underserved neighborhood. Located in downtown Washington, DC, just blocks from a bustling new high tech corridor, Shaw has very little in the way of technology infrastructure. This project will train teens and other Shaw residents in how to build websites and networks. Trained teens will help over 50 small businesses develop up-to-date websites, enabling Shaw to compete for tourists, visitors, and restaurant goers. Also, over 50 non-profits will learn how to use the network to communicate more effectively with each other, and will thus be able to serve the needs of their clients more effectively. Nearly 200 low-income residents will gain free access to the Internet with a simple dial-up connection to ShawNet. Teens carrying laptops in their backpacks will visit homebound elderly, teaching them how to use the computer to refill prescriptions, buy groceries, or set up email accounts to be able, for example, to correspond with grandchildren. Through these efforts, this community will begin to share in the area's technology-driven economic boom.

Project Significance

The problems facing Shaw are endemic to many urban communities. This project will serve as a model for the use of technology and networking to help local individuals and institutions solve local programs. The backpack program to take laptop computers into homes will extend the reach of the lab to an underserved community low-income, minority, elderly. Students will deliver workshops to seniors in their homes, at senior centers, or in nursing homes. These students will be gaining knowledge that will make them eligible for the area's many high-tech jobs that currently go unfilled. One of the other important aspects of this project is the need for improvement in the delivery of social services in DC. City services have deteriorated substantially over the last decade, creating a fractured network of private non-profits that are working to improve the services. This project will help to improve the delivery of services by connecting the non-profits to each other and, ultimately, to government institutions.

Partners

The See Forever Foundation is supported by local and national corporate and foundation funds. Its supporters include the Open Society Institute/Soros Foundation, the Echoing Green Foundation, the Mobile Oil Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the Kimsey Foundation, Canon USA, Kodak Corporation, the Fannie Mae Foundation, and the Freddie Mac Foundation, among others. For the ShawNet and Learning Center project, the See Forever Foundation will partner with three primary organizations: Emmaus, one of the largest providers of housing and related support to the poor elderly population in Shaw; Manna the leading community development corporation in Shaw; and Zachaes Free Clinic/Bread for the City, providing services to the area's homeless and working poor.