Stability in a Tornado

A lot of rural communities, as you mentioned, or Indian reservations. They they don't have access to Wi-Fi. And we've seen those disparities even more shockingly in the in light of COVID-19. And especially now with a lot of forced school shutdowns and social distance and distance learning. How has this impacted your work at Techbridge Girls? How are you managing to accomplish your work in what is now an increasingly virtual world?

Well, I mean, first and foremost, when COVID-19 hit, we took a pause and said, "What do our girls and what do our educators need at this moment?" Oftentimes we're quick to build something that we think is appropriate or adequate to the time and the relevance of our participants or our students in which we serve. But we at Techbridge Girls, for 20 years have never done anything without the voice of our educators and girls at the center. So we literally took about two to three weeks to reach out to every single one of our girls, volunteers and educators and said, "What do you need in this moment?" And based on that, it really came to us like, "We love STEM, but we are overwhelmed." We have so many home responsibilities. We don't have leisure access to technology, because I'm sharing it with my siblings or my parents during this time. And so it was really important to hear that and understand the realities of what they actually have access to and what they need in this moment. What we learned is that they needed community and network. So they needed to be reconnected with the girls of our program, with our program managers, the volunteers that consistently come into our classroom. They needed social emotional support. So how to navigate so much change?

You know, not only are our girls going through COVID-19, but they are also going through the racial unrest in this community that plagues their everyday life. And so how do I manage all of these emotions in this moment of time? On top of taking on responsibilities at my home for my siblings and my parents. And then, you know, STEM had to be flexible. The STEM education had to be flexible. You know, I don't have time before four o'clock in the afternoon to get on a call, even though I might be in a classroom with you in the after school program at that time. But my new responsibilities have shifted. So how can I still engage? So, you know, we use text. We use Zoom. We use group chat. We send home little gifts of things for our girls to do at their own speed and own own time. We asked role models to film videos that we can upload to YouTube so that they can look at them at their own time and availability. So it was really about being flexible. So that was created through our Techbridge Girls at home programing. And what we continue to learn is that we need to be adaptable and agile so that we can always meet the needs of our girls and keep their interest high in STEM, even through this crisis.