They live in the streets, but access technolgy

Buenos Aires, Argentina

New generations were born with virtuality, surrounded by remote controls, screens and buttons. But not everybody has the same access to technology. Having or not a computer or internet access creates a digital gap that impacts and reflects the place each one of us has in society.
In Buenos Aires there are about 4000 children that live in “street-situation”, a cold technysism that means that they don’t have a home, or family. These boys and girls live in groups and sleep in trains or subway stations, parks or church porches.

To survive they clean car windows, dance at traffic lights, some of the sell their bodies or they just beg for money. Needless to say, they don’t go to school, so presumably they are not learning to read and write.

But…a study conducted last year revealed a surprising fact: children in “street-situation” spend at least 60% of the money they collect in accessing new technologies. They get together at cybercafés (places with public computers) and play, chat, download music and communicate with each other. Most of them have an email address, although they don’t have a physical one. Lucas, one of them, doesn’t know about percentages, but remembers: “sometimes five or six of us would get together and we would get hocked in a Counter Strike tournament for hours”.
The study also revealed that by doing so these children are learning to read and write, skills that they are not acquiring in a formal way (going to school).

So the Buenos Aires government is trying an unconventional way to fight against the illiterization issue in “street-situation” children: it is creating Ciberencuentros, an initiative that offers free access to public computers for theses children. The cybercafés will also have dormitories, showers and specialist that will try to use technology to attract these children, keep them away from the streets and (hopefully) teach them skills that will allow them to work and survive.

A buenos Aires goverment offical in the opening of a cybercafe for children in "street situation".

So far, four Ciberencuentros centers have been opened in Buenos Aires. Time will say if this is an actionable solution against illiterization, or if it is just an utopist fantasy of some burocrats.

In a polarized world many gaps divide us, but bridging the digital gap might help us to bridge many others.