As an assignment from CSC300, I had the opportunity to give back to community. At first, I was assigned to a place called Alexandra Park Neighbourhood Learning Centre. Throughout the semester, I have emailed them numerous times; however, no replies back.
When it was addressed to our CSC300 professor, Danny Heap, he found out that the coordinator responsible has left the place. So, that how I got the opportunity to step my feet on to St. Christopher House.
Located at 1033 King St. West, St. Christopher house was founded in 1912 and has been providing helping hands to the community since then.
St.Christopher house has the following guiding principles :
- Build bridges within and across communities
- Promote access to full participation in society by addressing barriers like illiteracy, inadequate incomes, unaffordable housing, and discrimination of all types
- Assist people to meet individual and family needs
- Provide the tools and opportunities for people to control their own lives and to take on leadership in the community
- Advocate for changes in social systems that will ensure dignity, quality of life, and equal opportunities for all.
(The above logo and information has been obtained from the St. Christopher House Website : http://www.stchrishouse.org/)
To help the center with accomplishing some, if not all, of the principles listed above, 7 of us from the CSC300 class had our first meeting with one of the technical coordinators at 1033 St. Christopher House. Taking street car down the Spadina Street then on to the King St West, I was looking out the window. From the busy Queen and King street, the king street west area, where St. Christopher House is located, has a completed different atmosphere.
During our first meeting, we were given a brief introduction to the center and were informed of what the center wanted from us. They were in need of developing a moodle server, a database that automates tutor and tutee match ups and last but not least, tutoring service. Almost everyone was in favour of everything but tutoring. (I don’t know that might be in the nature of Computer Science people) So, I got the tutor position.
Up until that day, I have not visited nor heard of the area before. I know it not far away, but, it is just not located areas that I hang out. Out of curiosity, I have done some research on that area.
It turns out that, the King Street West area is one the most low income neighbourhoods in Toronto. I have obtained the map from City of Toronto webpage (http://www.toronto.ca/demographics/pdf/pollutionwatch_toronto_fact_sheet.pdf) and have circled the area in yellow.
I know this data was in 2001 census. However, my feeling is that, there haven’t been a lot of changes since then. Looking at this map and lecture notes from class, below is my conclusion to the gap in digital divide.
To a lot of people computer has become something you cannot live without. However, if you really think about it, computer is something that is good and useful to have but something you won’t die withou. Because the community that I have volunteered for has the highest poverty rate, the residence will not have enough money to afford a computer at home nor get educated on/about computers. Every year, to be really precise, every day, new technology comes out. Keeping up to them is impossible even for wealthy people. With exponential growth in digital technology throughout the past decades, the gap between what we call tacky people and non-tacky people became wider and wider. In order for them to catch up, they have start from buying the hardware, then learning to use them, which is not really an option for them. So they remain the same, but we move further away from them everytime something new comes out.
Because my community center that I was supposed to voluntter for changed last minute, I only had time to tutor one person. Couple days before the tutor date, over the phone, I had been informed of the existence of the guidelines for tutoring services, so, I arrived a bit early to go over them. The outline started from really, really basic material. It started from what hardware and software are and ended with creating an email account.
The man that I tutored was named Derreck and was in his 60’s, I think. When I asked if he had ever touched his hand on a computer, he said no. I had to tell him what the monitor was, and what the keyboard was. Even though he had no prior knowledge about computers, he was eager to learn and that’s all it mattered. However, to tell the truth, the fact that he had never used a computer in his life was a bit shocking to me. We see everyone using computers everywhere. I do not know a single person without a computer at home. I guess, I just wasn’t aware that this was only a part of the community, not whole. Anyways, to get back to the story, I had fun teaching him. I taught him how to turn on and off the computers, explained what the hardware machines did for us. Then we moved on to web surfing. When I asked what he wanted to use computer for, he said reading news, or get recipes. So, this was our main goal ! He learned what google was for the first time, and learned to search for news /sports news on the web. He was amused by the number of data returned from the search within a second. We finished off with creating an email account. I got him to email to me then rely to email.
I know he wasn’t going to digest everything I taught him but, at least, he now can come into the center and surf on the internet or write to his friends. He now was introduced to the world of web and technology. Not only that, he was very appreciative. I almost felt bad, because what I taught him was really nothing, yet, he appreciated it, a lot. That felt really good. So I told the center that I would like to come in once every week or two weeks to tutor people. Like Heap said, I have realized that I have the reason to give back to the community and it actually is fun.
Although people working at the center are far more technical than people coming into the center, our main way of contacting was over the phone. She said she doesn’t check her emails often and that phone will be the fastest way to contact. Everyone at the center was warm and welcoming and willing to provide help at all times. Overall, this was a really fantastic experience for me. I have learn to look at the community from a bit different angle as well and now I am aware that there are people from the opposite end of digital divide in our community.
