Countywide : Telecommunication Programs Get Grants

Five Orange County programs using telecommunications to bridge gaps in education, language and physical abilities were recently awarded more than $231,000 in grants by the California Public Utilities Commission.

Each year, grants from the commission’s education trust fund go to programs that reach out to consumers with information about products and services in the realm of telecommunications.

The Orange County recipients are:

* The Cambodian Family Inc. program in Santa Ana, which was given $73,250 for its telephone consumer-education campaign targeting Southeast Asian immigrants and refugees. The program, which has helped 5,000 people since 1990, expects the money to enable it to work with another 2,500 this year.

* Rancho Santiago Community College instructor Sheila Cragg of Garden Grove, who was granted $48,707 to create a package of educational board games that teach the use of phone equipment and services.

Cragg will use desktop technology to create the seven games that will teach phone skills to players with limited English skills, learning disabilities or hearing impairments. The games, due to be completed in July, 1994, will be given free to area educators, Cragg said.

* The Dayle McIntosh Center for the Disabled in Anaheim, which received $43,880 for a program next fall to teach about 1,000 disabled high school students about available telecommunications resources.

The program provides information on sophisticated equipment that can help the young adults communicate despite disabilities such as hearing and mobility impairments, director Robert Cummings said. The outreach effort will also educate the students about phone services, billing and available assistance.

* The Center for Economic Education, part of the Cal State Fullerton economics department, which will receive $39,080 for a campaign to provide 50 Orange County high school teachers with information on the economics tied to telecommunications.

* Technomics of Newport Beach, which will receive $26,960 to translate existing phone consumer fact sheets into Hindi. The translation will make the information accessible to newly arrived immigrants from such nations as Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.