[1st-mile-nm] NM Contest Winner: Broadband Changed My Life

[Richard Lowenberg]

Alliance for Public Technology: Broadband Changed My Life - Contest Winner

www.apt.org/events/broadbandevent110707.html

Sorraine Hot, the winner of APT's "Broadband Changed My Life! Contest,"
then gave a deeply moving account of the impact broadband has made in her
family and in her New Mexico community.

Hot was hired as the sole trainer in a community technology center that
opened in February 2007. Sacred Wind Communications Community Connect, a
non-profit arm of Sacred Wind Communication, Inc., manages the training
center with funding from the USDA-RUS Broadband Community Connect Program.
In such an isolated community, where residents often lack electricity and
there is only a single telephone, broadband has provided a critical
connection to the outside world.

Since February over 3,000 Navajos have signed in to use the computers and
44 have completed a training course, despite having to travel long
distances to reach the technology center. Upon completion of the program
graduates receive a refurbished computer for their personal use. Hot
powerfully described relatives being able to send digital photos and
communicate with loved ones serving in Iraq because of broadband. "it is
very rewarding and emotional to see people use this type of communication
for the first time." Navajos have used the technology center for job
training and resume building as well. Hot misses seeing them, but she is
pleased that they are now working.

Most importantly Hot saw her own four children, who lived for three years
with no telephone or Internet connection, reconnect with their father's
family in St. Louis.  Her experience working in the technology center has
also helped Hot grow, and as she explains "without this broadband I don't
think I would have helped a lot of these people."


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Richard Lowenberg
P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
505-989-9110,  505-603-5200 cell

New Mexico Broadband Initiative
www.1st-mile.com/newmexico
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