magazine
CTC VISTA Project Program Support
Organization:
U Mass Boston/College of Public & Community Service VISTA Name:
Melissa Daigle
Program Start:
8/2002
Program End:
8/2003
Project Description:
Melissa Daigle’s VISTA assignment began with a focus on support for producing and developing the Community Technology Review, with secondary goals of overseeing initial contact and placement assistance to prospective VISTA applicants, and providing other CTC VISTA Project program support as may follow from these two other objectives and otherwise as needed. Over the course of her first last months, Melissa did very impressive work in all these arenas.
Project Outcome:
Melissa’s work in serving as Assistant Editor for the Community Technology Review online journal involved overseeing most communication with the authors; manuscript editing and development; online line production and design (a task she’s undertaken concurrent with learning to use online tools such as Dreamweaver); outreach; subscription management; and general systems and procedures development to insure a more smooth-running operation. She has laid some useful preliminary foundations for advertising and fundraising
Melissa’s work in overseeing the project’s outreach and information pages on the Corporation for National Service’s information web site and dealing with prospective program VISTAs has been organized and efficient. Through the late spring and summer, this extreme demands of this task involving communication not only with all VISTA applicants but with project supervisors can be appreciated by the fact that the CTC VISTA Project is the most popular in the entire CNS system. A combination of work in both these arenas lead to a natural taking on of project-wide development work involving support for Project VISTAs in numerous arenas, the most visible of which were her work in producing a VISTA-focused project newsletter (www.cpcs.umb.edu/vista/Newsletter) and overseeing/coordinating the project’s joint VISTA-Supervisor Advisory Committee. Along with her contributions to the monthly Boston-area VISTA meetings, serving on the “First Tuesday” television production team, filling the gaps and undertaking other initiatives for project support, Melissa’s leadership is generally recognized by both her peers and the project administration.
Computer Training Curriculum Development
Organization:
Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA) VISTA Name:
Alison Hale
Program Start:
8/2001
Program End:
11/2002
Project Description:
Alison has gotten a great deal accomplished in the past six months: the completion and maintenance of a student-tracking database, the revision of our Introduction to Computers curriculum including the translation of portions into Spanish, the development of a curriculum for a Netscape Composer class, the expansion of our Technology Center’s software library, the development of a plan to encourage computer use among the adult population of Villa Victoria, and work towards the creation of a youth magazine. In addition, Alison has continued to work with community residents in open lab and to otherwise help maintain the technology center.
Project Outcome:
Alison’s assistance to launch and to implement the Introduction to Computers at the technology center has helped the residents of the Villa Victoria to understand the basics of computers operation via a three-day class. This program has trained over 250 people and distributed 91 computers among our community.
Impact Quote:
Without Alison, El Batey Technology Center simply would not have been so successful, she is an intelligent young woman with many talents and a true interest in community. The Villa Victoria has gained a wonderful friend in Alison and we hope she knows she will always have a home here.