Intel Inspires Young Women to Change the World

Last week the world celebrated International Women’s Day and this past weekend, the Women in the World Summit took place in New York City. The summit offers the opportunity for women from around the world to get together and discuss the importance of educating girls throughout every corner of the earth, and what it takes to break down the barriers preventing some girls from receiving an education.

We sat down with Shelly Esque, Vice President and Global Director of Corporate Affairs at Intel, who also participated in the “Girls Can Change the World Panel,” at the Women in the World Summit. Between Intel’s Classmate PC project, the Intel Science Talent Search program, we have known for sometime that the company is heavily invested in education. But Shelly spoke to us more specifically about Intel’s continued efforts to bridge the gender and technology divide. During our conversation together, Esque brought up an interesting point, and that is that technology is gender neutral, yet it really has the potential to unleash a woman’s confidence.

In the U.S. we take internet access for granted, but in places like the Middle East, women are just a minority of online users. And this is a shame, because access to information leads to more empowered women. For example, Esque spoke of one Turkish woman who was at first only allowed to dust the computer in her home. Then Intel created a women’s education program in her local community center. After enrolling in the program, the woman not only learned some valuable computer skills, but she also gained the confidence she needed to apply those new skills to her business. Today her business has become so successful that she is going global. And because she is making money, her male family members no longer seem to be bothered with her using a PC.

Intel believes that technology brings young girls more opportunities for education. Of course, once girls have the opportunity to get an education, they also gain the ability to make a difference in the world. To that effect, Intel has been working with non-government organizations like Room to Read, which is an organization that creates libraries in places that don’t have any. Organizations like this one has helped bring more educational opportunities to young women in developing nations. Furthermore, since 1995, Intel has set-up over 100 Intel computer clubhouses around the world where girls can learn from mentors, as well as from each other.

Intel also has a special Hackathon event coming up soon at their head-quarters Oregon. This 2 day event brings together Intel’s software engineers with groups of young women. The Hackathon will start out with the software engineers coming up with app ideas to solve the girls problems. There will also be opportunities for young women to learn how to create their own apps. All in all, Intel’s goal is to move people to action to help empowering women and girls through education and technology.

http://www.chipchick.com/2012/03/intel-inspire-change-world.html

Homelessness: It's About Race, Not Just Poverty

http://www.citylimits.org/conversations/159/homeless-the-role-of-race


By Ralph da Costa Nunez
via citylimits.org

When talking about homelessness, race is often the elephant in the room. But no matter how much we avoid it, the blunt reality is that black Americans are greatly overrepresented in homeless shelters across the United States. In 2010, one out of every 141 black family members sought refuge in a homeless shelter, a rate seven times higher than members of white families.

The Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness report “Intergenerational Disparities Experienced by Homeless Black Families,” released Thursday, sheds light on this grim circumstance, by highlighting disparities among black and white families in the United States.

The statistics are stark: Black persons in families make up 12.1 percent of the U.S. family population, but represented 38.8 percent of sheltered persons in families in 2010. In comparison, 65.8 percent of persons in families in the general population are white, while white family members only occupied 28.6 percent of family shelter beds in 2010.

This disparity exists in city after city throughout the country, For example, in New York City and St. Louis in 2009, the most recent data available, twice as many black families were found in shelters (55.9 percent and 95 percent, respectively) compared to their share of the general city population (25.2 percent versus 49.5 percent). The opposite held true for white families who were vastly underrepresented in local shelters (1.9 percent and 3 percent, respectively), given the percentages of white families in New York City and St. Louis overall (36.1 percent versus 44.7 percent).

The next question, of course, is why?

Homelessness is primarily a poverty issue. In 2010, nearly one-quarter (23.3 percent) of black families lived in poverty, three times the rate of white families (7.1 percent).

But there is more to it than that. Understanding why blacks are overrepresented in homeless shelters requires an examination of the longstanding and interrelated social and structural issues facing the black community. Throughout U.S. history, housing discrimination has been ever-present, both in the form of official government policies and societal attitudes. Federal policies that reduced the stock of affordable housing through urban renewal projects displaced a disproportionate number of poor blacks living concentrated in cities to other substandard urban neighborhoods.

Residential segregation, which affects black households to a greater extent than other minorities, perpetuates poverty patterns by isolating blacks in areas that lack employment opportunities and services, and experience higher crime and poverty rates. Blacks are also overrepresented in the criminal justice system, which increases the risk of homelessness and developmental delays among affected children.

Lower educational attainment among blacks, in particular black males, is a barrier to gaining any employment and especially to qualifying for jobs in well-compensated sectors. Black males earn bachelor’s degrees or higher at half the rate of white males (15.6 percent compared to 32 percent). Employment disparities rooted in subtle forms of discrimination persist even with educational advancement.

In 2010, blacks with an associate's degree experienced a higher unemployment rate than whites with a high-school diploma (10.8 percent and 9.5 percent, respectively). Furthermore, a male black employee with a bachelor’s degree or higher was paid one-quarter (25.4 percent) less on average in weekly full-time salary ($1,010) in 2010 compared to a male white worker ($1,354) with the same level of education.

This report raises the question of why family homelessness is a racial issue. This phenomenon is not new, but is rarely discussed. Although government-sanctioned racial discrimination may be a relic of the past, the finding that blacks are overrepresented in shelter when compared to whites demonstrates that blacks continue to face prejudice and substantial access barriers to decent employment, education, health care, and housing not experienced by whites.

It takes a community to end homelessness. Family shelters can—and do—function as part of the front-line, combating bias and providing opportunities for families who fall through the cracks. However it will take more than a few service providers to call attention to the elephant in the room. It will take all of us as a nation to voice our intolerance of policies that make it difficult for some to ever rise out of poverty.