I love the thermometer Ted posted about Access–it is a reminder that one can be surprised to know who has access to email. 

I am the physician advisor for a project in which homeless teens are working with a theater group to produce a play about homelessness and their experiences.   Who could be more disenfranchised than homeless youth?  But guess what?  Denver’s Gay and Lesbian Community Center has a program called Rainbow Alley for teens who identify as LGBT or who are questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity, and they provide computer access for these kids.  Since more than 40% of homeless youth are LGBT, and the Center does not do a litmus test anyway, this means that potentially all these kids could have access to the internet.  And of course, there are other places as well–libraries, or as Ted posted earlier, even Burger King can provide access.

 For the moment, this doesn’t help me–you have to be a Kaiser Permanente member to get health care from us, which includes emailing doctors.  So these kids with no resources or insurance can’t email me.  But can you imagine how a charity or public health system with online access could use this to make health care and advice available to people who have no permanent address or even phone?

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 at 5:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.