KHouse Project develops Educational, computer-based activities to fight digital and social divide among children, youth, and adults (teachers and seniors).

Neglecting the access to the Information Society by poor children, youth and adults can push them toward servile work, unemployment, or criminality itself. Because the lack of public policies to avoid it is well known in Brazil, making these people participate in relevant programs and introduce them to the Information Society is vital to promote their self-esteem and social justice.

KHouses are laboratories for computing and communication staffed by educators and technicians open for underprivileged kids, adolescents and adults. The concept was created and implemented as an extension of the Kidlink international project (http://www.kidlink.org). It was originally developed in Brazil and was a pioneer project in digital inclusion that enabled the access of many children living in poor areas of the country to have access to many uses of the computer and the Internet supported by resources from Educational Technology. The project was launched in 1995 and since the beginning it has been focused on elementary school kids and students from the secondary level.

The first KHouse in Brazil, the Model/PUC-Rio KHouse, is both a research center and the responsible for feeding the other KHouses with pedagogical/methodological guidance, taking into consideration social, economical and cultural characteristics of each Brazilian region. The multidisciplinary team in Model/PUC-Rio KHouse coordinates, follows up, evaluates the activities developed in each KHouse telecenter, besides training teachers, maintaining and updating the project’s webpage.

KHouse Project in Brazil functions based upon four different models:

1) Children and Adolescents Model: Development of digital literacy and citizenship for children and adolescents.

2) Open Model: Reassures the access to ICT resources for those who “undergraduate” in the Children and Adolescents Model.

3) Adults Model: Development of digital literacy for seniors and teachers.

4) Vocational Model: Training of adolescents who leave the KHouse Project but aim the job market.

KHouse is a simple and easy-to-implement project: A room equipped with at least 10 computers connected to the Internet (to serve two groups of 30 students, once a week); supervision by the students’ teachers, and support provided by 3 professionals certified by the KHouse Project. The 3 professionals cover the areas of pedagogy, psycho-social and technological support. KHouses can be installed in public or private locations, such as schools, universities, trade unions, churches, factories, and others.

Our model has been exported to countries that show social-economic characteristics similar to those found in Brazil, such as Bolivia and Mexico. Bolivia opened 3 KHouses near La Paz in 2003. Mexico opened 1 KHouse in Colombia Ampliación Selene in 1999.

It is proved that social inequity grows as computational resources advance, because less privileged citizens are unable to reach for technology. Social inequity growth also influences other social indexes, such as violence and unemployment.

Making our participants take part in this socially relevant project, while they are simultaneously introduced to the Information Society, is a fundamental action to promote both their self-esteem and social justice.

The fact that our children, adolescents and even seniors are able to arrive at their homes or other social environments and tell that their learning how to use computers and technology as a whole makes them see and feel themselves as part of a group, important people. As a direct consequence, they feel integrated to and participants of society.

ICTs, as they are applied in the KHouse Project, promote attitude change and the construction of new future plans in the participants. The technology-based activities planned and applied by our staff aims at exploiting individual’s accumulated life-experience to stimulate his/her cognitive abilities and his/her self-esteem. This promotes their inclusion and participation in the Information Society, contributing to positive social indexes.

The KHouse Project can be implemented in any institution—private schools, universities, syndicates, churches, museums, NGOs, factories, etc. When our model is replicated by the government, it reaches public schools, public libraries, sciences centers, training centers, among others. This is a very relevant project, with a considerable share of social responsibility.

KHouse Project develops educational, ICT-based activities to fight digital and social divide among poor children/adolescents, and adults (teachers and seniors). KHouses are laboratories for computing and communication staffed by educators and technicians. ICTs, as they are applied in the KHouse Project, promote attitude change and the construction of new future plans in the participants, by the time it promotes digital and social inclusion, and contributes to positive social indexes.