Bringing Home the Pain of Homelessness With a Webcast to Schools in 35 States

By NICOLE WALLACE

Efforts to lobby members of Congress often take place behind closed doors

with just a handful of people present. But the National Coalition for the Homeless recently used satellite-broadcasting and Webcast technology to give homeless children a way to share their stories with federal lawmakers, as well as more than 600,000 schoolchildren in 35 states.

During the coalition’s annual Forget Me Not event in April, three students spoke about their experiences being homeless in front of four Democratic members of the House of Representatives and more than 250 students and Congressional staff members who attended the event in person. A primary goal of the live Webcast and satellite broadcast was to raise young people’s awareness of homelessness and to make the point that it also affects children, says Barbara J. Duffield, the coalition’s education director.

“It’s absolutely critical to teach young people about homelessness to prevent biases from developing,” she says. “A lot of the stereotypes and the stigma that people who are homeless face start when kids are young.”

Students watching the event heard Shoniqua Williams of Richmond, Va., a sixth grader, tell how difficult her life was when she, her mother, and her younger sister became homeless after her parents separated. The year she was in third grade, she lived in two states and attended three elementary schools.

“Instead of showing the real me, I hid behind my tough-girl image and bullied younger kids to make myself feel and look better,” she remembered. “Most of those feelings were related to my being disappointed in myself. I was confused. I didn’t know what to do. I cried at night.”

Ms. Duffield says that the majority of the 600,000 students who participated in the broadcast watched via satellite hook-up, but that the Internet was important in reaching out to schools that don’t have access to satellite technology.

“Many more school districts are actually tied into the Internet than they are to satellite television,” she says.

The coalition also used the Internet to distribute the curriculum it created to accompany the broadcast, which includes a list of things young people can do to fight homelessness, such as volunteering at a local soup kitchen, raising money or collecting clothing for a shelter, and writing letters to government officials.

The Forget Me Not broadcast was designed to encourage active participation, rather than just passive viewing, on the part of students.

Four classrooms in Massachusetts, Texas, Washington State, and Wisconsin participated in the event via a two-way interactive video connection, which allowed students in those classes to report to members of Congress the results of research that they had conducted on homelessness in their own communities.

Other students who were watching the event could call a toll-free number to ask a question of the lawmakers and the students who testified about homelessness.

A student from Bartow, Fla., called in during the event and asked how it felt to be homeless and go to school every day. A South Bend, Ind., student asked lawmakers if they planned to raise the minimum wage, while another from Kenosha, Wis., wanted to know what it would take to get more homeless shelters built across the country.

Diane D. Nilan, program director for Public Action to Deliver Shelter, in Aurora, Ill., has come to Washington for each of the annual Forget Me Not events. She has noticed that the number of Congressional staff members attending the event has increased — and the number of blank stares she sees when she visits legislators’ offices has gone down — since the first event was held three years ago.

Although Forget Me Not took advantage of sophisticated technology, the coalition relied on flyers, faxes, and e-mail communications to its existing network of partner organizations to spread the word about the event. They contacted state and local homelessness coalitions, housing groups, child-care organizations, and child-welfare agencies — as well as a network of schools that work together on education issues for homeless children.

This was the second year that the event was broadcast, and Ms. Duffield says her group has learned that it’s critical to give schools and community groups — and their technical staff members — plenty of time to prepare for the event. She also emphasizes that it’s important to provide very detailed instructions telling the sites exactly what they need to do to gain access to the broadcast.

Coordinating the technology to pull the event off isn’t always easy, but Ms. Duffield says that the effort is worth it. “The technology is so central because that’s what ties everybody together. Otherwise it’s just an event on TV.”

For more information: Go to http://www.nationalhomeless.org/fmn2001.