The United Way of the Greater Triangle’s Teaming for Technology has formed a partnership with Univision, an American Spanish-language broadcasting TV network, to expand its mission of providing digital resources to Latino families through its La Familia [The Family] Technology Awareness Program.

The program has given more than 25,000 refurbished computers at extremely discounted prices to schools and non-profits from the coast to the mountains of North Carolina since 2004. With this new partnership, its goal is to expand and increase its mission, reaching the homes to Latino families in the Triangle area. 

“The partnership between Univision and United Way is exciting because we are reaching a new audience,” said Edwin Jeffords, chief information officer at United Way and manager of Teaming for Technology. “It is a new focus on families. Normally, each computer given to a school can impact five people. Our new goal of additionally giving computers to Hispanic families has a different impact as it has a multi-generational effect. We are trying to lift up generations as one entity: grandparents, parents and children.” 

With Univision being the fifth largest network in the United States reaching 94.1 million households, the TV broadcaster has an important platform in the Hispanic community. 

“A big part of the mission of Univision is not just to entertain and inform, but to empower,” said Irene Caicedo Gonzalez, Univision director of community empowerment for North Carolina.

With the vision of empowerment, Univision created Clave al Exito, an online resource that helps Hispanic families with tips on how to handle everyday situations. These situations include helping parents understand at what level their child should be in school, helping monitor their student’s reading and providing templates of letters that can be translated to English and be sent to teachers. 

The partnership of Univision’s Clave al Exito and United Way’s Teaming for Technology creates a powerful duo. When a family has a computer, a world of opportunity and resources are opened. Not only can the Latino families utilize the online resources of Clave al Exito, but they can also become educated about technology, which has seemed to become vital for everyday life in the United States, through La Familia Technology Awareness Program.

“Education can be the key to break the cycle of poverty,” said Irene Godínez, United Way’s vice president of marketing and communications. “With more public schools relying on technology, Latino students are falling behind. When school systems start using email as a function of communication, parents without access to computers are left out of the loop with their student’s lives, left out of opportunities to get involved and cannot be an advocate for their child. There is a lapse in understanding the school system and languages and overall inequality.”

Now through the collaboration of Univision, United Way, volunteers, businesses and nonprofits, the North Carolina community can create equality in technology for Hispanic families. Along with the low fee for a refurbished computer, the only expectation of the parents and children is to attend a basic training course hosted by United Way to learn how to use its new technology. The training courses will be monthly, after early November.

A lot of community effort will be needed to fulfill the demand of the computers, according to Jeffords. Bilingual volunteers are needed to help with the basic computer training for the Latino families. In addition, any volunteer would be helpful in assembling the refurbished computers, with no in-depth knowledge of computers or technological skills required, according to Godínez.  

“We don’t know how big this new program will be and don’t have a limit of how many computers we will give out to families,” Jeffords said.

As technology continues to infiltrate lives, it is important that efforts such as Teaming for Technology and Clave al Exito are made to diminish the digital divide, according to Caicedo Gonzalez. 

“Many Hispanic families believe that computers are a luxury item, but in reality, they are a necessity,” Godínez said.