DATE: Wednesday, October 1, 1997            TAG: 9710010475

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A13  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   73 lines

PROGRAM PROVIDES COMPUTERS, TRAINING TO HELP WOMEN EXIT WELFARE

Four pairs of wide-open eyes are riveted on the blips of a computer screen in Washington Park's neighborhood police station in Portsmouth.

Officer Glen Perry is bent forward, hands clasped behind his back, watching Wanda Jones move blocks of text around on the screen.

Bytes, baud, bootable. Search string, spread sheet. Logon.

It's a new language - one that's foreign to most public housing residents of Norfolk and Portsmouth, say two women who put the computer in place. They've launched a project to help women about to exit welfare learn the lingo and computer skills.

Spurred by reports that Oakland, Calif., has mandated computers in all public housing units, Pat MacMaster, owner of Community Empowerment Designs and Enterprises, a Norfolk economic development consultation firm, and Tina Thonnings, a VISTA volunteer from the Washington-based Time Dollar Institute, are ready to install three of 20 donated, used computers in Tidewater Gardens' office this week.

Washington Park got dibs on the first computer.

Jones, the ad hoc instructor at Washington Park, is a Norfolk State University student and single mother who used to be on welfare. She hopes to make this hardware hers by teaching others how to use it.

To earn a computer, public housing residents must accrue 100 credit hours, at least 25 of them either learning or teaching computer skills. The other 75 credit hours may be earned through community volunteer work. And the hours earned also go toward fulfillment of the 20 hours of community service now required of able-bodied public housing residents.

Robin Anderson, 35, who used to be on welfare, was taking in Jones' every mouse move, every keyboard stroke. She, too, hopes to earn her own computer.

``I need it to help my daughter with her homework,'' she said. ``Everywhere you go, computers are everywhere.''

Helen Person, 66, wants to learn computer skills, too.

``I feel like anybody needs to know it this day and age,'' she said. ``The young mothers are really happy with it. . . . With welfare reform coming, it will prepare them to go out in the work force.''

MacMaster and Thonnings solicited the hardware from a West Virginia law firm, then set about putting the technology within the reach of public housing residents. They believe that other cities will follow Oakland's lead and that eventually the federal government may require computers for public housing residents.

Without basic computer skills, women seeking to enter the work force are effectively illiterate, says MacMaster. To expect welfare recipients to compete for jobs without such basic knowledge, she adds, is asking them to fail.

In Oakland, where it is now law that low-income units built with local tax money include computers, the housing authority has applied for grants to make the technology available to public housing residents as well, said Shad Smalls, deputy chief of the projects division of Oakland's Community and Economic Development agency.

``The idea behind the policy is that we have an obligation, in light of welfare reform, to prepare them for the jobs being created in the community,'' said Smalls in a recent telephone interview.

``These are people who feel they've been left out,'' said Smalls. ``It's part of our pro-active response to the transition from welfare to work. To get them to volunteer, serve as trainers and mentors.''

In South Hampton Roads, Thonnings and MacMaster hope other organizations and government agencies will donate their outdated hardware and software so they can replenish the equipment as it is earned by program participants and start the project in other public housing neighborhoods. Also needed are funds to upgrade the donated hardware. It will cost an average $750 for each system.

The West Virginia law firm donated the equipment to Time Dollar Institute, a group that promotes a bartering system that swaps volunteer hours among those who would otherwise be unable to afford services they need: child care, transportation and tutoring, for example. MEMO: For more information on the computer literacy project or the Time

Dollar concept, call 480-4703.

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