Tecschange: Technology for Social Change
Roxbury organization makes moves to keep up with technology and global community demands
By Eliot Kristan

Tecschange’s Roxbury office is surprisingly clean and orderly for an organization that is 90 percent operated by volunteers. Perhaps more impressive are the 20 or so computer workstations lined up against all four walls. Charles Turner, a volunteer since 1999, asks for a hand, which he jokingly remarks he lacks as an amputee, with moving a cow-spotted cardboard box – Gateway’s signature packaging design. A young woman who volunteers at EnviroCitizen, an organization with which Tecschange shares its space, enters from the side of the office.

“Do you have o­ne of these?” she asks, holding out a mangled Ethernet card to Charlie. “This o­ne is broken.”

“Sure, no problem.”

Later o­n, Roxbury resident Toya walks in beaming, and Charlie wheels a computer perched atop a pushcart to her car. He also hands her a couple software CDs hand-packaged in fluorescent green paper.

“A gift from Santa,” he says.


Welcome to Tecschange, or Technology for Social Change. Dedicated to educating community groups about empowerment and technology, Tecschange offers computer-training programs in the Boston area and provides computers around the world in places where the problem is not computer management but a computer void.

Toya had just completed Tecschange’s six-week Hardware Repair course. From hard drives to processors to loopback modules, she learned the ins and outs of a typical PC’s anatomy and how it works. Probably best of all, each participant is guaranteed her own free computer. No strings attached. The course is completely free, too.

“We’re fulfilling this need in the community where most don’t have CPUs at home,” said Program Director Betsy Rueda Gynn.

But those needs are becoming increasingly more difficult to determine for Tecschange, which is now making drastic changes to its programming in order to meet them.


Aside from learning how to repair computers, Sandra Harris, who is originally from Mexico, also learned how to speak English in the Hardware Repair course she took in 1999. After finishing the class, she was able to land a job as an IT specialist for a textile firm, which she still holds today.

A Tecschange promotional video made by Harris in 1999 shows an excited Amil Cooke, a Roxbury teenager who was enrolled in the same Hardware Repair course.

“Being a kid in Boston, there is a lot that I can get into,” Cooke said. “But I like working with computers. And my Dad likes it because it will help me get a job.”

But times have changed, and the changes have been especially dramatic in the vibrantly dynamic field of technology.

“This shows how dated the movie is. You can’t get a job now,” Turner said. “Nobody has gotten a job in a long time. It’s not like it was.”

Now that computer components are produced cheaply overseas, simply buying a new computer usually makes more sense than paying someone to fix or upgrade hardware.

“Computers aren’t a few thousand dollars anymore, but $200,” Rueda Gynn said.

Those involved in shaping Tecschange are stepping back to look into how they can best serve their community. They have canceled this spring’s Hardware Repair course.

“Tecschange is putting time into what grassroots organizations need and how to fulfill that need,” Rueda Gynn said.

A new program called Computer Essentials for Small Organizations, which will be offered in May, is the result of this reassessment. For a $25 fee, staff members of non-profits who – voluntarily or otherwise – have assumed the responsibilities of a techie when the budget hadn’t allowed for o­ne, can learn the latest in virus protection, memory backups, and software updates.

“Basically, we’re teaching groups how to keep computers healthy,” Rueda Gynn said.

In addition to the new course, Tecschange will continue to offer a summer program called Youth Tech for the second year in a row.

“We teach teams about media literacy - the power of media, who owns media, how owners control what you do or don’t see, and alternative and independent media,” Rueda Gynn explained.

The program provides both the tools and know-how students need in order to create their own piece of media, which they are expected to complete by the end of the course. Volunteers show participants how to put together web pages, graphic compositions, and o­nline Flash advertisements using desktop publishing software such as the Macromedia software suite.

“We teach the skills needed to make their own media and why it’s important to produce rather than just consume,” Rueda Gynn explained.

There is o­ne prerequisite for acceptance into the program: the participants must be involved with a community-based organization.

“We try to enroll teens engaged in their community. That way their media project is useful to the group,” Rueda Gynn said.

Last summer, several teenagers built a website for their Dorchester-based organization, Teens Against Gang Violence, and Tecschange offered an additional helping hand to the group.

“They had a couple of meetings when there were problems in the group that they wanted to work out,” Rueda Gynn said, referring to Tecschange’s office at 83 Highland Street.

Operating almost entirely with a volunteer work force, Tecschange has always sought the best avenue to fiscal efficiency. Thankfully, a hot new system of software development, along with applications it produces, is o­n the rise, and Tecschange is fast o­n its heels.

“With Linux, you don’t need to setup expensive networks; you can do it for free,” Rueda Gynn said.

It was o­nly two or three years ago when o­nly tech geeks were able to use Linux-based operating systems and programs comfortably. But now, possibly due to the overwhelming surplus of jobless technology workers, the “open source” software largely dependent o­n volunteer labor is becoming increasingly accessible to the average computer user.

“If you know how to use [Microsoft] Word, you know how to use Open Office,” Rueda Gynn said, referring to a software suite developed by Sun Microsystems that completely simulates Microsoft Office’s functionality and user friendliness. Maybe best of all for Tecschange, which can o­nly afford to employ two people o­n a part-time basis, the software is free and can be easily downloaded from openoffice.org.

“Right now we’re really short o­n expensive software licenses, so [open source solutions] open up doors for us,” Turner said.


The other major contribution that Tecschange makes to communities is sending computers to “progressive organizations” in places all over the world, including Africa, India, Uruguay, and Argentina.

“We have given to over 200 organizations in the last few years,” Rueda Gynn said. These organizations - including schools, a women’s rights advocacy group, various peasant and indigenous collectives, independent media centers, and human rights monitors - have received between o­ne and 20 computers apiece.

But the job of delivering computers to these organizations is not always as easy as Fed Ex-ing a box.

“A lot of times the organizations we’re sending computers to are out of favor with their respected governments,” Turner said. But, as is true of its local campaigns, Tecschange is ahead of the curve.

“If a person picks it up in the mail, they may want a tariff or a bribe,” Turner said. “But, if you have a computer in luggage you can say, ‘that’s a present for my brother-in-law, leave me alone’.” Tecschange delivers most of its computers in this manner, employing travelers to smuggle in the goods. This tactic does not always ensure the computers arrive with the proper receivers, though.

This past February, Tecschange sent computers to El Salvador to be used to monitor the elections. Rueda Gynn sounded nervous when she said that she is not sure if they ever made it to the right people.

“They weren’t allowing independent monitors so we just don’t know,” she said.

Augustin Fernandez traveled from Uruguay last summer to participate in a media conference in Cape Cod. After the conference, he spoke to volunteers and community activists at Tecschange and also picked up a “fast” computer, which he brought back to Uruguay in his luggage. The computer is being used at the Uruguayan Independent Media Center, and according to Fernandez, it has proved to be invaluable.

“Computers are so expensive here,” Fernandez said. “The big problem now is who gets to use it.”

A recent shipment to Guatemala has also proved invaluable to its users. In the early 1990s, Guetemala endured a number of severe civil wars under a corrupt government. Many people fled the war-torn country. In 1996, that government was ousted and a peace accord was created. The accord guaranteed land to its rightful owners and granted subsidies and aid packages to the refugees.

But there was a problem: The accord comprised thousands of pages written in very technical language. The refugees neither had the time nor know-how to access and decipher it.

A couple years ago, grassroots organizers created La Fundacion Jurcios Lima, which took upon the monumental task of figuring who gets what and how. Earlier this year, after learning of the indigenous peoples’ struggles, Tecschange transferred a total of 15 computers to the foundation. With the new computers and dial-up Internet, the foundation was able to interpret the peace accord and act o­n it, delivering land, money, and food handouts to the rightful recipients. The Tecschange computers are the o­nly o­nes available for a region of 10,000 people, Rueda Gynn estimated. And the biggest problem now is paying for the electricity it takes to run them.

Tecschange continues to work hard to redistribute the imbalanced share of technology and technology know-how both locally and globally. Whether low-income workers, indigenous populations, or mobilizers for progressive change, most people do not have the time or money to keep up with the ever-changing field of technology. Luckily, Tecschange is there to do it for them.

“I think in the future more people are going to start asking, ‘How do we want to use this box?’” Rueda Gynn offers.

“But for now, that’s why we’re here.”

Other articles by Eliot Kristan.

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