[Actionchix] Some discussion?

[Akkana Peck]

Mary writes:
> Not much love from my first post, so let's try again.

Okay, I'll play!

> 1. What projects would you like to work on that fits in with LinuxChix's
> goals (supporting women in Linux)?

Education!  Mentoring and encouraging high school and college girls
(and boys too -- wouldn't hurt them to see technical women -- but
especially girls) and showing them open source options.  Or how
about adult women in abuse or homeless shelters who need to re-enter
the job market or who just need tools to write a resume?

Giving classes (free or cheap) in using open source software,
and in programming.

Helping to set up open source alternatives for schools, nonprofits,
shelters, students, poor people.

Helping to mentor student programmers (of any age) getting started
with contributing to open source.

> 2. What projects would you like to work on that you think LinuxChix
> could help out with?

The hard part is finding and approaching groups who are interested
in having volunteers, and coordinating with them.  The actual
helping part is straightforward, but linuxchix might provide ideas
for program structure which might appeal to certain types of
organizations, or have something that sounded like a worldwide
program to add legitimacy.  A lot of organizations might be more
open to participating in the "Linuxchix Technical Student Summit"
(or whatever), with a flyer and a web site, compared to some random
hesitant geek calling up and saying "Um, er, I have good intentions,
anything I can help with?" and then scaring them by using terms
like "Linux" or "operating system".

> 3. What are your experiences in previous volunteer projects?

I've helped at a few educational programs for high school girls,
usually a "come in one day during our week long summer camp and
help with this already-set-up program" sorts of things.
These work pretty well, but are dependant on finding a group
that already has such a program going, and has space for some
extra volunteers; and since they tend to be one-time shots,
you always wonder whether anything is sinking in.

I've signed up with several mentoring groups for girls in computers
(both high school and college), but that hasn't come to anything yet.

I've been to activities like LUG installfests and they vary a lot, but
most of them seem to end up being a bunch of people sitting around
doing their own hacking because it's not clear who needs help and
of what sort, and who's available to offer help and of what sort.

	...Akkana