Of any city in the United States Charlotte ranked 50th out of 50 in terms
of economic mobility, basically you have more of a chance of actually moving
backwards than going forward and when we look at why they were left out, one of
those reasons that is because they lack the access the technology or the
literacy skills to take advantage of those things.
Digital Charlotte's mission is to empower organizations and help them
deliver Digital Inclusion training to the communities that they serve one of
the most powerful examples is the ReImage Charlotte program that E2D is
running and partnership with Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. By employing high
school students to refurbish laptops that were donated by corporations and
now they have helped their fellow classmate gain a skill set that has the
chance of transforming their life. Speaking with teachers over the years
they've said the kids won't tell you they don't have a computer at home they
just won't do the work. 100% of the solution to the digital divide for
Charlotte students is hiding in plain sight. There are tens of thousands of
computers that are being decommissioned annually
by businesses. Back in May we had a distribution of 500 laptops in this
community and the kids at this lab had refurbished 300 of the 500 laptops.
We're not just giving them a laptop we're giving them an opportunity.
There's no more pencil and paper like everything we do is on a phone or a tablet or computer.
What our mission ultimately is is to expose West Charlotte High School to
opportunities in the tech field and what it takes to get there. You know, to
actually say no there really is a path for you to get a job. That is something
that these kids are really gonna pay attention to and get excited about and
motivated to follow.
We know that in order for us to have real impact it is going to take partners coming together
to really amplify that frame of thinking across every activity that happens in Charlotte.
One of the ingenious solutions
that they came up with is the ONE Access program.
ONE Access is a partnership between Charlotte Mecklenburg Library and Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools.
With ONE Access all 146,000 Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools
students, their student ID number access their library account number so it's not
necessary for a student to have a separate library card they use the same
number that they use at school every day to log into the computer and use our
resources. We've noticed a huge jump in the use of e-books especially nonfiction
ebooks for that middle grade set which means that if a student is at school or
at home they're really going to the library checking out a book on overdrive
and using it.
What we're seeing is that the initial efforts that we're taking they are
beginning to make an impact; we need to continue to expand capacity,
continue to expand these programs, continue to make our community aware of
these opportunities and in the Charlotte that I hope we see those opportunities
are afforded and created for everyone from corner to corner of this city and
that access to those opportunities is easily available and readily available
to everyone.
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