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Tobias's original plan had been to teach impoverished adults and single moms computer literacy so they could get jobs. But when Tobias asked businesses if they would hire YSM's grads, they laughed. They told him bluntly that a lack of white-collar social skills—never mind computer literacy—barred most poor people from employment in Toronto's silver and gold office towers.

What to do? Taking the business community's counsel to heart, Tobias decided to shift his focus to younger students, who could break the cycle of socioeconomic depression in their community.

Named after Toronto's most famous street, the Yonge Street Mission has for more than a century served the urban poor—everyone from newly arrived refugees to homeless people who sleep on city grates during the winter. Most of YSM's clientele live in southeast-central Toronto, an area dominated by Regent Park, a subsidized housing development with a 50 percent unemployment rate.

Regent Park looks like a prison without bars—it doesn't need them. The children here face steep odds against finding living-wage employment in the wired world. They have 66 percent less access to computers than other children in Toronto. Teachers try hard, but poor schools throughout Canada seldom have enough money for classroom computers.

Canada's situation mirrors that of the United States. A 1998 study by the U.S. Department of Commerce worried that "while computer penetration has increased nationwide, there is still a significant 'digital divide' based on race, income, and other demographic characteristics." For example, 51 percent of U.S. households own computers, but the numbers decrease to 28.7 percent among inner-city African Americans and 31 percent among Hispanics.

Going from computerless homes to computerless classrooms, many children are being educated for irrelevance to the 21st century economy. And irrelevance of any kind has a devastating effect. "By the time our children hit grade 5, they are emotionally dropping out of school," Tobias says, "and by the time they hit grade 10, they have dropped out, period." He hopes that introducing youths to computers at an early age will help reverse those trends.

YSM began cautiously in 1999 with a 12-week course that covered word processing, database, spreadsheet, graphics, and typing skills. Kids who passed a final exam got a refurbished Pentium computer to take home, loaded with up-to-date software.

"We talk about it as a learn-and-earn program," Tobias says. "We do not tell the kids we are giving them a computer. We tell the kids they are earning a computer."

Rachel, 13, is excited about the prospect of receiving a home computer. She had tried using computers but did not get far because she did not know how to type, a skill she is now learning at the mission.

Julie, 11, drifted into the program with a friend and stayed, determined to get a computer. She says a computer with Internet access would help put her in touch with the world outside Regent Park. "If I do a project I can get information. I can also get information from my friends and my cousins," who are scattered through Vietnam and the United States.

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August 6 2001, Vol. 45, No. 10