community organizing

by James Carlson Located at the East End of Houston, TX is a place people call Pecan Park. If you look above the cars and notice the trees canopying most streets, you will understand why. The local high school is among the oldest in this coastal city. In the south end of Pecan Park, an apartment complex supports over 8,000 area residents, who are the poor of this already poor metro neighborhood. The per capita income of all residents in this community was last taken at $10,326. On the Westside is a local community college, and to the East a Community Technology Center, known as Technology for All (TFA). It is here, that I have made my home this past year. …read more

[From the blog of Carl Seifert , September 7, 2006.] New CTC VISTAs Gariet Cowin & Carl Seifert at PSO So, details...I'm Carl Seifert. A cajun from Louisiana, now a resident of Arlington, Virginia, I got connected with a great CTC in Alexandria (literally across the street from Arlington) and started teaching adult computer literacy classes to out mainly immigrant clientele. After a while, the relationship was such that they wanted me hired on full time, but didn't have the money to pay me, soooo enter CTC AmeriCorps VISTA Project. Now, I'm going to be serving in a new capacity to increase our organization's ability to keep up with our students. During my tenure, I am charged with creating a way to not lose track of our students, some of whom lack consistent phone lines. This is in order to help with fundraising and increase our capacity to continue to serve the community even after their courses at Computer C.O.R.E …read more

[From the blog of Ellen-Rae Cachola, August 11, 2006.] HPP Staff: Mary, Cali, Bobby and Ellen-Rae I must say my favorite memories from the past year is meeting the most coolest people who I consider good friends! I think this project really got me closer with community and technology, helping me to see good side of technology. I know this roots reggae band called Bambu Station that say "technology is the tool for civil-lie-zation." Yet being part of community tech centers have helped me know how to use technology to serve the voices and perspectives of the oppressed/disadvantaged people. Good memories includes the orientations, conferences, blogs, sharing of knowledge, and feeling that many involved were all on the same level of caring and wanting social transformation, which fills me with inspiration still. Ellen-Rae finished her VISTA service in September '06, but continues to work with Homeless Prenatal Program in San Francisco. Read more from Ellen-Rae's CTC VISTA blog.

by Ed Schwartz Ed Schwartz at 2005 PSO When I first became aware of the Internet in 1994, it didn't take long to recognize what a contribution this new technology could make to community organizing. Even without seeing the World Wide Web, which became operational several months later, I saw the enormous potential of email lists—listservs—to permit many-to-many communication within communities, throughout the country, and even throughout the world. This was unprecedented. Organizing is about bringing people together. Listservs made this possible quickly and easily in a way that no prior technology could do. I started my first email list that summer—civic-values—and have been managing lists ever since, including several on YahooGroups in Philadelphia where we have built a network of more than 1,200 community activists and City officials who communicate with each other every day. …read more

by Brittney Fosbrook As a new member of the CTC VISTA Project, I began my service full of fascination for the seemingly utopian quality of social networks made possible through open source content management systems (CMS). My enthusiasm for social networking software easily translated to my first large task at the Homeless Prenatal Program (HPP), a portal to be used primarily as a resource for case managers. In my initial vision, the portal would allow case managers to both access and alter content regarding best practices, downloadable forms and resource recommendations for clients. This case management portal, I assumed, would allow case managers to engage in a collective, participatory and accessible social network mediated through open source software on the internet. However, as my research and development for the portal commenced, I began to see there were problems with idealizing internet-based social networking. …read more

by Denise Meise   West Tennessee STAR Center The West Tennessee Special Technology Access Resource Center, better known as the STAR Center, is a non-profit organization in Jackson, Tennessee that specializes in assistive technology. In 1988, Chuck and Margaret Doumitt discovered that their two youngest children were losing their eyesight, and doctors eventually determined that they had a rare condition called Batten’s disease. This disease would cause blindness, seizures, loss of motor skills, and ultimately death. Chuck and Margaret began to dream that George and Angela would someday have access to assistive technology. Instead of moving to a larger city that already had an assistive technology center, the Doumitts decided to start one on their own.   …read more

by Danielle Martin Last fall, then VISTA Leader Saul Baizman wrote a candid article on the latest evolution of the CTC VISTA Project communications scheme for the Fall edition of the Community Technology Review entitled “Build an Information and Communications Technology Infrastructure in 21 Days.” At the time when Saul first started tackling the problem, the Project’s site was mostly a static site with contact information and some examples of the Project work. In his tenure at the Project, Saul helped the site evolve from a confusing, multi-tool system to a more simplified contact directory complimented by a webblog system. …read more

by Jo Lee Jo Lee at Sept PSO I recently gave a talk at the 2006 CTC Vista Project Orientation. I was prepared for a total disaster. My presentation followed Wendy Cohen from Media Matters. She showed these awesome laugh-out-loud and tear-jerking short films that moved the entire room. How could I possibly follow that act? All I had to talk about was how a small group of activists used a free email advocacy service called CitizenSpeak to battle a multinational railroad company. Much to my surprise the room, full of VISTA members and supervisors, lit up in response to the opportunities afforded by CitizenSpeak. …read more