Native American Support from Gates Foundation (Re: [WEB4LIB] Re:Digital Divide)

[Robert Tiess]

Zoe,
This might be of interest to you (or others on
this list) concerning grant support from the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for Native Americans:

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/publicinfoaccess/nativeamerican.htm

Contact information and grant guidelines are there.
It seems well worth looking into concerning the
circumstances you described below.
Robert


Zoe Holbrooks wrote:
> Here, here!!!  Many of us who work in economically deprived areas or with
> economically underadvantaged clients (students, communities) -- and who are
> ourselves members of those communities -- have long recognized that when a
> groovy label gets stuck on something, it means a lot of cash will get thrown
> at middle managers, universities, and think tanks to investigate/"research"
> the issue. Lots of ink will get spread on lots of pages bemoaning the
> tragedy
> and pontificating on solutions.
> 
> The reality is that underadvantaged communities get (and have always gotten)
> 
> less and what they do get is usually the bottom of the barrel -- whether
> that
> is groceries or schools. Students who can't read can't make the most of
> whatever they do have access to. Literacy and numeracy are the critical
> technologies here.
> 
> Personal anecdote: I'm the volunteer Library/Technology Coordinator for a
> tiny Native American alternative junior/senior high school in Seattle. This
> student body and their associated faculty get moved from one physical
> location
> to another -- frequently far across town from their homes -- every 2-3
> years.
> Like clockwork. Their library mostly consists of garage sale donations. When
> my alumni association got involved with them last year, we had 23 copies of
> John Grisham's The Firm in our stacks, but nothing by Sherman Alexie, James
> Welch, or most any other contemporary Native author. We had a room full of
> donated 386 and 486 machines, most of which barely ran MS Works. In spite of
> the fact that:
> - the District IT office (and crew) resided in the same location,
> - the library/computer lab had T1 in the building (put in the year before by
> 
>   a parent volunteer group),
> - and the existence of all the necessary cabling (donated by the principal's
> 
>   brother-in-law),
> - AND a willing and knowledgeable crew of volunteers experienced in setting
> up
>   labs and networks,
> 
> THE LAB WAS NOT ONLINE DURING THE ENTIRE SCHOOL YEAR.
> 
> Why not? The IT office somehow couldn't manage to inform the Principal (or
> any of
> the tech volunteers) how to get the lab connected to the School District's
> net. And
> somehow, in spite of being in the same complex, the employee responsible for
> this
> particular school couldn't ever quite manage to spend the hour or so to get
> it
> connected. So, in spite of all the rhetoric about wiring the schools and
> getting
> everyone on the Net, it never happened.
> 
> This year, the school was moved again. This time to a community college
> campus nearby.
> They received a donation of recycled machines from a local federal
> government regional
> office. They are now connected (via the community college's network) -- as
> of the new
> year. Of course, now that they are located on the community college campus,
> they have
> access to the community college computer labs. But not through the efforts
> of the
> school district.
> 
> My point here is that entrenched classism, racism, and political maneuvering
> drive a
> lot of what goes on. Schools and communities who are at the bottom of the
> list for
> books, teachers, facilities, etc., aren't going to be on the top of the list
> for
> groovy stuff like state of the art technology. Underserved communities are
> well aware
> that they will have to struggle for whatever they get, and for some they've
> been
> struggling so long they have just pretty much given up.
> 
> The "Third World" isn't somewhere else, it's here: It's on remote
> reservations, in inner
> city warzones, and in rural hamlets. And it's not all brown. Those of us who
> live in
> privilege -- and that's pretty much every one of us with a decent paying job
> who has a
> phone and cable at our command -- do well not to forget that.
> 
> Zoe