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In February 2007, the New Mexico nonprofit Sacred Wind Communications Community Connect (SWCCC) began to provide computer training and Internet access to Navajo families through the Huerfano Computer Training Center. Visitors who complete a series of seminars become eligible to receive refurbished computers. The program has helped area residents use the Internet to learn about colleges and employment opportunities, and has allowed community leaders to make health-care information more widely available. Public access to the Internet also has helped strengthen family connections in an area where many lack telephone service. Visitors to the community center, for example, have used email to stay in touch with relatives serving in the military in Iraq and with extended family in the US.
Sorraine Hot, an instructor for SWCCC, helped gain attention for the program when she entered and won the Alliance for Public Technology’s Broadband Changed My Lifeessay contest. Hot’s own experiences as a single mother using the Internet to help her children connect to their father’s family, her skills as a teacher, and her dedication to the community made her a model of the role technology can play in rural development.
. Historian Shae Davidson's research interests include public policy and the relationship between culture and civil society. His publications range from articles on industrial history to absurdist poetry.
