June 27, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Habitat for Humanity of Forsyth County, in North Carolina, thinks that the computer is an essential appliance for the 21st-century home, not unlike a refrigerator or washing machine, and it has begun a $1-million project that by the end of the year will put a computer in every home the organization has built.
Two years ago, HATCH, a local company that focuses on early-childhood technology, came to Habitat and offered to donate computers for the homes that the Winston-Salem, N.C., organization was building. Each of the 32 homeowners who helped to build and then bought Habitat houses since then has received a computer, printer, computer desk, and two years of Internet access. Habitat’s new Digital Bridge Initiative will allow the organization to expand the program to include the owners of the 100 Habitat homes that were built in Forsyth County before 2000, as well as to future homeowners.
In addition to the computers, homeowners and their families receive up to 16 hours of technology training.
“We’re not just delivering computers and Internet access,” says Sonja Murray, Habitat’s director of development. “We are insuring that before the computers go into the home there is a certain level of computer competency within the family.”
After they have completed their training and are using the computers in their homes, owners can call a toll-free number to ask HATCH additional questions.
AOL Time Warner, in New York, will provide Internet access to the homeowners and finance a two-year study by Wake Forest University that will measure how having a computer and access to the Internet affects children’s grades, families’ communications, and parents’ employability. Depending on the results of the study, the Digital Bridge Initiative could expand nationwide in 2005.
Ms. Murray says that in focus-group discussions the organization has held with the families who have received computers since 2000, participating children said that what they liked most about their new homes was that they had computers, which made them feel like everyone else in their classes.
“They could type out their reports,” says Ms. Murray. “They could do their research without having to catch a bus, go into the library, line up and only get 20 minutes of Internet time, and then have to get off the computer.”
