Kayla Hernandez plans to use the money she earned during her summer internship to buy a car. Bill Barnett hopes she invests her internship knowledge in her neighborhood.
Hernandez, 15, an incoming sophomore at Chicago’s Whitney Young High School, and Barnett, chief technology officer at the Field Museum of Natural History, were part of a summer program that gave 14 Hispanic high school students a technology skill and an all-important first entry on their resumes.
In a second-floor computer lab at Erie House, 1347 W. Erie St., Hernandez and the other students spent 22 hours a week learning the illustration software Photoshop and hypertext markup language. Their goal was to modernize the intranet for the Field Museum.
Each Friday, after four days of lab work, the students met with their “client,” Field Museum officials.
“What we’re really training them for is not just technology work, but the tools to provide a business service that transfers back to their community,” Barnett said.
The Erie House program is one of about 500 free or reduced-fee training programs for teens and adults across the Chicago area. Like thousands more around the country, the courses are aimed at filling the gap for those lacking the computer skills that are often important for future employment.
The Children’s Partnership, a California-based national non-profit, said 57 percent of Americans over age 25 use a computer at work.
But for many people, getting access to a computer is still a challenge.
Nearly half of Illinois’ 4 million households do not have a computer, and of those that do, half do not have Internet access, according to federal statistics compiled by The Children’s Partnership.
Most of the households without computers earn less than $15,000 a year, according to the group.
For the Internet, only 16.1 percent of Hispanics and 18.9 percent of African-Americans have access from home in Chicago. Both figures are well below the national average.
Of the 14 students who participated in the summer Erie House program, four did not have a home computer but nine had Internet access. Only one student had coded HTML before the program.
Every organization providing tech skills to the community faces some hurdles.
I.C. Stars is one of the city’s most visible programs, training 18- to 25-year-olds each year for high-end technology jobs. Angelique Grandone, community outreach and recruitment coordinator for I.C. Stars, 212 W. Superior St., said its students’ experience varies from an extensive training in programming to independently learned HTML skills.
Jennifer Christian is an I.C. Stars graduate working at her first job, a Web site programming internship at Allstate Insurance Co. in Northbrook.
Christian came to I.C. Stars this year with a few semesters of training in C# (a programming language), HTML and structured query language, a database application.
I.C. Stars added business skills by using a case-study approach, said Andy Baker, human resources staff manager at Allstate.
On one project, for example, Christian used her programming skills, on another she used her management skills and on the third she was the client advocate.
“We look at a number of sourcing opportunities, and I.C. Stars is one of those organizations that provide diamonds in the rough, entry-level talent for our organization,” Baker said. “Managers say [hires like Christian] bring energy and enthusiasm. They’re more prepared for company life.”
But the fact is there are more training programs than people who want the skills, said Grandone.
“It’s like we’re begging for clients,” she said, although the organization pays students $600 a month. “The push among social service agencies is to get a job, get any job. Social service organizations are seeking employment, not training. So many people cannot afford the time” for training to get a better job.
Cabrini Connections at 800 W. Huron St. has all the students it wants but not enough money. An $18,750 federal Department of Education grant for computer tech support runs out in December, and the organization has cut staff by more than 50 percent.
“We don’t know where the money will come from to continue that support,” said Cabrini Connections President Dan Bassill.
The 8-year-old Cabrini Connections introduces 7th graders to computers “to do homework, listen to music or play video games. We’re not teaching them programming or specific keyboarding skills. That’s not our focus,” Bassill said.
Erie House’s new training program operates with a mix of private and public funding.
Alejandra Silva, project manager of the Erie House program, said Mayor Richard Daley’s KidStart program kicked in about $18,000 to pay the students’ $5.15 hourly salary for the six-week course.
Silva’s organization, the Illinois Coalition, is adding $2,000 from private donations, and the Field Museum is adding an estimated $2,000 in in-kind contributions of time and lunches. The U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute helped develop the program.
Sitting in an upstairs lecture hall at the Field Museum, the Erie House students began their first client meeting in early July.
“This is where the client lays out its expectations,” said Allyson Meyer, the museum’s Webmaster. Meyer detailed the Field’s intranet and talked about her view of Web page design.
Just like working at a Web design firm, the students get an understanding of the client’s needs, the available technology and, of course, the budget.
Then the students will break into two-person teams to design and program pages for the museum’s internal audiences, ranging from finance to information services.
When the summer program ended in mid-August, the museum had 10 new designs up and running on its intranet, and the students had work experience to start a resume.
Getting the intranet pages done by an outside agency would have cost the museum $5,000 to $10,000, “a budget we don’t have,” said Barnett. But more than the programming, he sees the program as a way for the students to give back.
“We want them to help the community to be more empowered to use the Internet. We want them to set up [Web development] shops in the community to get small companies onto the Internet,” he said.
“The real value in teaching these kids is that they know their community, they know their clients, and they know the technology.
