{"id":181,"date":"2018-10-14T21:25:04","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T04:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/?p=181"},"modified":"2019-08-24T14:26:04","modified_gmt":"2019-08-24T21:26:04","slug":"tea-and-technology-at-the-dtes-tech-cafe-a-blog-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/2018\/10\/14\/tea-and-technology-at-the-dtes-tech-cafe-a-blog-series\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tech Cafe, Part 1:"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part 1 of 4.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

By Robyn Taylor-Neu<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you waiting? Am I in your way?\u201d The woman swivels towards me in concern. Her\u00a0bespectacled companion furrows his brow at her laptop screen and then looks back to\u00a0his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cUhhhh, no, I\u2019m\u2026\u201d I stammer, gesturing vaguely with my notebook. \u201cJust hanging out, I\u00a0guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, ok,\u201d she nods, but shuffles her chair sideways all the same and shuffles papers\u00a0from the table in front of me before turning back to the laptops. From what I can tell, the\u00a0man is helping her sort out an online log-in situation. I sympathize. Glancing around the\u00a0room, I note three or four similar pairs, angling towards their respective screens. I\u00a0realise, after a moment, that I\u2019m not sure who\u2019s a community member seeking tech help,\u00a0who\u2019s a UBC volunteer, and who\u2019s a \u201cpeer educator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diagonally across the square perimeter of tables, William chats with a young man, a\u00a0student volunteer from the univresity, I recall. Dionne stands at the other end of the\u00a0table, joking with a community member. Although the two organizers appear absorbed in\u00a0conversation, I suspect otherwise. Their eyes flicker around the tables, taking stock,\u00a0even as they laugh or smile or shrug in response.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about being attentive,\u201d Dionne Pelan says later, describing her role at the Tech\u00a0Caf\u00e9, as Computer\/ Drop-In Coordinator at the UBC Learning Exchange. William Booth,\u00a0the Coordinator of Vancouver\u2019s DTES Literacy Roundtable, nods in agreement. We\u2019re\u00a0seated around a table, Dionne, William, Alex, and I. William and Dionne have graciously\u00a0taken time to chat about the initiative that they jointly coordinate, the Tech Caf\u00e9. In\u00a0simplest terms, the Caf\u00e9 is a literacy program based out of several locations in the DTES\u00a0and co-supported by the UBC Learning Exchange and the Downtown Eastside (DTES)\u00a0Literacy Roundtable. Its express aim, in one commentator\u2019s view, is to help Downtown\u00a0Eastsiders \u201cget tech savvy.\u201d As our conversation with William and Dionne unfolds,\u00a0however, it becomes clear that there\u2019s much more to the story. And \u201cbeing attentive\u201d is at\u00a0the crux of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you two met, you had the idea for the initiative, and\u2026?\u201d I prompt, perhaps exposing\u00a0my status as interview ingenue. William and Dionne exchange a look and a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not exactly how it happened,\u201d William explains. The Tech Caf\u00e9, Alex and I learn,\u00a0grew organically from an earlier initiative, the LinkVan app, which in turn emerged from\u00a0William\u2019s and Dionne\u2019s long-term involvement in the Downtown East Side Community.\u00a0Knowledge, passion, experience, and care for the community have all been essential in\u00a0the project\u2019s development\u2014but at its root, I\u2019d contend, is a well-honed habit of being\u00a0attentive.
\n\u201cWe agreed that the biggest problem [in the DTES community] was that people did not\u00a0know how or where to access services. So we were having this conversation and a UBC\u00a0student volunteer overheard. He said, I\u2019ve made an app and would love to make another\u00a0for this.\u2019\u201d Eager to put his computer science skills to work in the \u201creal world,\u201d he built a\u00a0mobile app that collected information about community resources in a digital directory.<\/p>\n

\"=
Community partnership means building relationships and meeting people where they are.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The prospect of such an app was exciting. But university-community interactions are\u00a0shadowed by a persistent, pessimistic (though not entirely inaccurate) narrative. It goes\u00a0something like this: once upon a time, there was a marginalized yet vibrant urban\u00a0community that, one day, falls prey to rapacious university researchers; these sinister\u00a0and self-interested investigators descend upon the unsuspecting (or perhaps resistant)\u00a0victim, drain it dry, and suck the marrow from its bones\u2026 Ok, I\u2019ll admit that\u2019s rather\u00a0melodramatic.<\/p>\n

Dionne explains, more matter-of-factly: \u201cUniversities themselves tend to have a fairly\u00a0poor reputation within the community or communities because often it’s not a reciprocal\u00a0relationship\u2026 the researchers come down, the students come down, they get the\u00a0experience\u2026 they get their needs met.\u201d This situation is, emphatically, not what the UBC\u00a0Learning Exchange is all about. And in the case of the LinkVan app, Dionne and William\u00a0wanted to make sure that the project served the community as intended.<\/p>\n

To avoid the pitfalls of a prescriptive, paternalistic approach, they solicited input from the\u00a0community. In these early days, Willam recounts, they recruited community members to\u00a0take the app out into the streets, the parks, the shelters, and the community centers of\u00a0the DTES. These \u201ccommunity ambassadors\u201d consulted their peers regarding what might\u00a0work, what was needed, what was wanted\u2026 and what wasn\u2019t. When I asked whether\u00a0this method of \u201cconsultation\u201d was central to their practice, however, William was quick to\u00a0clarify: \u201cI think the word conversation is probably a more accurate term than\u00a0consultation.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot in that difference\u2014it\u2019s a difference that makes a difference, one might say.\u00a0\u201cConsultation\u201d not only suggests a business model\u2014its linguistic register is private-professional\u2014but it also implies a hierarchy between consulter and consulted.\u00a0\u201cConversation,\u201d on the other hand, describes a different form of sociality: the implied\u00a0interaction involves evenly-positioned conversationalists.<\/p>\n

From these conversations, the team gleaned valuable insight into what the app should\u00a0include. But when they observed how it operated in practice, a new challenge became\u00a0apparent. \u201cOne of the things that we noticed during that phase was that there were a lot\u00a0of folks\u2026who didn’t actually know how to use computers or maybe they didn’t know how\u00a0to use their device to access things,\u201d Dionne recalls. \u201cIt wasn’t enough just to build the\u00a0app. Like we kind of had a responsibility, if we wanted people to use it, to show them\u00a0how to use the app, but in the process also [show] them how to use their technology or\u00a0devices.\u201d<\/p>\n

This need for \u201ctech tutelage,\u201d William and Dionne discovered, was unmet by traditional\u00a0digital literacy programs because many DTES residents were wary of formal education\u00a0(many of them, for good reason). Rather than see the situation as an obstacle to the\u00a0app\u2019s success, though, William and Dionne saw an opportunity: an opportunity to take\u00a0what had worked with the app\u2014i.e., a community conversation model and commitment\u00a0to \u201cmeeting people where they\u2019re at\u201d (figuratively and literally)\u2014and apply it to address\u00a0this newly exposed need.<\/p>\n

\"=the
Community partnerships should adapt to meet the needs of the community. Sometimes these needs are not what is initially anticipated. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

********<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part 1 of 4.\u00a0 By Robyn Taylor-Neu \u201cAre you waiting? Am I in your way?\u201d The woman swivels towards me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61442,"featured_media":192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[468221,3704299,3704289],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-robyn-taylor-neu","category-tech-cafe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61442"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/experience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}