e-ACE
The electronic Atherton Community Enterprise, or e-ACE, is Infoxchange Australia's first and longest running digital inclusion project. About 800 households on the Atherton Gardens public housing estate in Fitzroy, in Melbourne's inner north, were awarded free computers with software and email, access to free volunteer-run computer training, and equipment to use in an ICT hub located on the estate which is open and free to use for all residents. A community intranet, available at www.atherton.org.au, is regularly updated by Infoxchange staff, local community services and residents themselves with information of interest to the Atherton Gardens community. For a small fee, residents can also browse the internet.
Without the technology made available to them through the e-ACE project, most Atherton Gardens residents, mainly low income earning, migrants or the children of migrants, would have not been able to access a computer at all. Local information has been made available in multiple languages and residents are easily able to access local employment and training opportunities through the e-ACE intranet, as well as connect with their family and friends on the other side of the world. Self-paced training in important programs such as Microsoft Word enable the residents, many of whom have absolutely no prior experience with computers, to learn vital skills to help with writing resumes and formal job applications.
An independent review of the e-ACE project conducted by Swinburne University researchers Denise Meredyth and Julian Thomas found residents were using the e-ACE network to contact educational institutions, type a CV, apply for jobs, investigate a health issue or problem, communicate with service providers, contact the local Office of Housing with a housing query or access another type of government service.
The e-ACE project aims to:
- improve the social, economic and environmental circumstances of a public housing estate in Atherton Gardens;
- strengthen the capacity and cohesiveness of the community and its networks and;
- provide access to information technology for those usually excluded from its benefits, that will lead to increase the skills and educational opportunities of housing estate families.
It takes a whole of community approach to community building and economic development using new technologies as tools to provide equal access for all residents to local community and world-wide communications, alongside education, skills development, improved health and well-being, access to health and community services and employment opportunities.
The project focuses on the hundreds of households in the Atherton Gardens public housing estates.
It includes components such as:
- development of intranet and appropriate communication management systems;
- involvement, coordination and integration of government, service providers and businesses;
- development, coordination and provision of training for residents;
- provision of access to information technology for residents, including provision of appropriate computer hardware, software and user support;
- a community development model that enables the transition to resident involvement in the development of a social enterprise through training, support, systems development and business management;
- evaluation of its outcomes; and
- examination of the public-private partnership options.
e-ACE will:
- strengthen and develop new partnerships and relationships between residents of the Atherton Gardens Estate, community service providers, government at all levels and the business community
- use a community-development approach that encourages and develops community understanding, ownership and ongoing management of the project
- facilitate a community strength-based approach to the development of community responses to local issues, concerns and needs and
- mentor and support the implementation of coordinated, ‘grass-roots’ approaches to the provision of services and facilities for residents so that they are empowered to control their own lives.
It adopts a direct-action strategy to address issues of affordable access to information technology; economic development of the local Fitzroy community; increasing user IT skills; the creation of web-based content that is relevant and the inspiration of local communities to life-long learning.
