PCs: Personal Connections

A computer cannot make you feel valued or loved.

Nor can it take advantage of what you have learned after 70 or 80 years of living.

But a computer can serve as a point of commune, a reason for people coming together--and when that happens anything is possible.

“Sharing of ideas, information, love and heritage,” said Lillian Mobley of the South-Central Multipurpose Senior Center, who attended a ceremony Friday for a new computer literacy program at the California Science Center in Exposition Park. The program will pair older people with teenage and preteen mentors.

“By working together we’ll understand each other more,” Mobley said.

At the heart of the effort is Rosa Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Ala., was a turning point in the civil rights movement. The Rosa Parks Institute for Self-Development is working with the Science Center to develop the program.

At Friday’s ceremony, Parks, 85, was received by throngs of elementary-age schoolchildren chanting her name. Others who attended, including state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) and Marguerite Archie-Hudson, praised Parks for her contribution to civil rights and her continued involvement.

“We still have much to do,” Parks told the audience. “That’s why I am still working to help not only seniors, but youngsters, to have a better life than we had in the past.”

Even at the Science Center, where the new and innovative abound, the intergenerational approach is different.

“This is a first foray into senior [programs],” said Bob Campbell, deputy director of the facility. “What we found out after the opening of the new Science Center is that adults and seniors are as excited as the kids.”

The computer literacy program will be offered through the new Rosa Parks Learning Center. Scheduled to open in mid-June in Exposition Park, it will also offer classes in subjects such as chemistry and rocketry.

The classes, presented free to children and adults, will be run by an adult instructor, with teenagers and preteens assisting their older counterparts.

The Parks center also represents a milestone for Break Away Technologies, which donated 16 computers to the computer literacy program.

“For the first time we’ve been able to donate to an organization with the specific goal of being intergenerational,” said Joseph Loeb, company president. “We think that is so critical. With the broken families that we have, our young people don’t have a connection with the past. They think the world started with them.”

Although some older people are initially intimidated by the idea of learning how to use computers, the excitement of the practical benefits soon outweighs the fear.

“The incredible thing is now they’re able to e-mail their grandchildren,” said Loeb. “It’s something they never imagined.”

After the ceremony 7-year-old Jason Mills, a computer-literate third-grader, was certain that he could teach a novice, like his grandmother. And Audrey Quarles was convinced of the value of computers for her generation.

“It’ll help them to stay young in the mind,” she said.