Friendships are finally getting their due. Once relegated to a distant third position after life partners and children, a spate of new books are spotlighting the importance of friends. And research shows that people with close friends are healthier – both emotionally...
Purpose Prize
The Latest from CoGenerate
An Intergenerational Approach to Getting Families Housed in Santa Barbara
Lyiam Galo is the co-director of Generations United for Service, a program of the Northern Santa Barbara County United Way and one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing...
Utilizing Faith-Owned Land to Strengthen Intergenerational Community in Seattle
E.N. West is the co-founder and lead organizer of the Faith Land Initiative of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing older and...
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Mel King
Purpose Prize Fellow 2006
Enabling people to become producers of knowledge and sharers of ideas through technology
Educator and poet Mel King, 77, founded the South End Technology Center @ Tent City in Boston in 1997 to provide access to technology and technological training to those who had been excluded from the technological revolution. King had always been interested in helping youth in the neighborhoods of Boston and began to think of using technology as a catalyst for positive community change. He created the Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn program in 2002 to provide teenagers meaningful paid work and an education experience at MIT. After their own training, the student-teachers teach younger people in summer technology camps throughout Boston. Last year youth teachers exposed nearly 300 kids aged 8-13 to six different emerging technologies: robotics, animation and game-programming, web design tools, videography, solar and hydrogen fuel cell energy, and digital fabrication. Working with MIT students, youth teachers also design projects that apply several technologies to address problems in their communities. Students from the program have gone on to study science and engineering in college and have returned as program mentors.