Some people wonder how the Tierras Blancas project began. It is a story of an idea taking root slowly, gaining support, running into problems, and finally coming to partial fruition through dogged determination.
Four years ago, Sally Childs and Rodolfo Melgoza were talking about what it was like where Rodolfo came from in relation to technology. Computers and technology were a big part of Rodolfo's life. He said there were no computers in Tierras Blancas, the town where he came from. Sally asked him what he thought about taking computers to Tierras Blancas and he said it was a good idea. He suggested we could give some to the school and put some in homes.
We knew we should find out more about the possibility of giving computers to Tierras Blancas so we planned a visit.
Much of the information we had about utilities in Tierras Blancas was anecdotal, along the lines of “not everyone has electricity”, “the phones are weird”, and “they don't have phone jacks”.
We sent two representatives to Tierras Blancas during the Thanksgiving vacation of 2003 to see what they could find out. We sent Richard Shields and Rodolfo Melgoza who is from Tierras Blancas. They visited the director of the school, Victor Hugo Madrigal Pasallo, and found out that he would welcome computers, but wasn't convinced we would be successful. He said that we were not the first to say the school should have computers, but no computer has ever come to Tierras Blancas.
Now, through the Castroville Community Computer Project we located used computers and fixed them up for those in Tierras Blancas.
A Short History of the Tierras Blancas Project
