Last July, CTN renewed a contract with the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development in San Francisco to continue providing digital skills training and support in underserved areas of the city. This is our third year working with MOHCD with the shared goal to help residents in low-income housing developments and clients of neighborhood access points improve their digital skills.
Our current contract consists of providing digital literacy instruction to residents of Alemany Apartments, Holly Courts, and Ping Yuen North. We are also providing volunteers to Goodwill, PRC, and FacesSF, all of which are neighborhood access points that help residents research and apply for employment.
Pictured here are Alex Bahn, digital equity manager, Leo Sosa, executive director and co-founder of Dev/Mission, and Nay Carter, CTN program manager at Ping Yuen North, a housing development in Chinatown. As part of the contract, we are to provide digital literacy classes to their residents, but until this picture was taken, they didn’t have a computer lab.
Dev/Mission, which was founded in 2017 by Leo Sosa and a team of technologists that care about STEM opportunities for diverse young adults, provided 10 refurbished laptops and will provide more to the program as part of a grant they have with MOHCD. They aim to train untapped young adults ages 16 to 24 for careers in technology, and one aspect of the program is to train the students on refurbishing computers.
Class offerings at all the housing developments included in the grant will be a mix of multi-session classes on the basics of using a computer and the internet, as well as intermediate skills for needed for office work. There will be stand-alone workshops on topics relevant to the residents, like banking online and using spreadsheets. Individuals who complete 8 hours of instruction will be eligible to receive a computer or tablet.
Wonder how you can help? We need volunteers at the neighborhood access points. If you are interested in volunteering, please complete our online application here.
