[hackerspaces] Refugee Memberships...

[sheila miguez]

On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Petr Baudis <pasky at ucw.cz> wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 11:24:46AM -0600, sheila miguez wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 2, 2015 at 10:54 AM, Petr Baudis <pasky at ucw.cz> wrote:
> >
> > >   I guess part of the misunderstanding is the seduction of lumping
> > > all "undeveloped world" together - Syria and Kenya, Paraguay and
> > > Indonesia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, (South) Sudan and Nepal, ...
> > > In fact, the tech situation in each of these locations is AFAIK very
> > > different and their economic level may not correlate well with ih.
> > > Another thing is that 10 year old anecdotes / experience with some
> > > of these regions may be largely invalid today.
> > >
> >
> > His observations still stand for the amount of effort and drastically
> > different expectations that will come in to play for people without
> > experience who have good intentions.
> >
> > As I mentioned upthread, I volunteered some small amount of time with an
> > organization in Chicago to tutor a brother and sister and also teach a
> > class in "computers" to kids. They were from Somalia.
>
> Well, you quoted my point that comparing technology awareness level of
> refugees from different troubled nations [to that of Syrians] just
> doesn't make any sense.
>
> Then, you proceed to counter with an anticlimatic experience teaching
> immigrants from Somalia (of all places!).
>
> I've read the story with interest, thanks for sharing it.  But I fear
> I couldn't get my original point across here.
>

Huh. I guess not. I felt I was agreeing with you in part and illustrating
with a specific example of attempting to help refugees from a different
troubled nation than Syrians. The OP did not specify a nation.

My intent is to make a case to the OP that they should be in touch with an
organization with experience in providing assistance to immigrants to get
details on how to help them use a membership in a way that will help. I
think people should dedicate more than just money in this case by checking
with the organization to see what other needs there may be for people to be
able to use a hackerspace. e.g. transportation, child care, providing of
interpreters, ??? etc.

I think failure modes are instructive, so I shared mine. Thank you for
enjoying my story.


-- 
shekay at pobox.com
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