MIRA

“Managing Information with Rural America”
is near completion

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s “Managing Information with Rural America” (MIRA) is near completion. MIRA sought to draw upon community resources to help rural people use technology to meet their current and future needs.

The target communities included southeastern Ohio, south-central Colorado, central Mississippi, northern New Mexico, northwestern Pennsylvania and northwest Wisconsin. The projects completed by these cluster communities included building community web sites, starting a small business incubator, starting a GIS survey, conducting computer literacy classes for community members, a youth crisis center, a new school for the Taos Pueblo and the use of digital storytelling to preserve the history and culture of Forest County, Pennsylvania.

While most MIRA groups achieved their goals, other groups went one step further and blossomed into new projects. MIRA’s attempt to help rural people use technology has helped the Taos Pueblo to maintain their old traditional ways while using modern technology. Thanks to MIRA, the Taos Pueblo has received funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for 20 new computers, a computer lab technician and a transmitting tower to be built soon.

Taos Pueblo has also been chosen to be the latest U.S. recipient of “Building Schools, Inc.” Shawn Duran, Taos Pueblo Education Division, plans to use old traditional methods to build this school and use it primarily as a computer resource center and a place to learn their native tongue, Tiwa, which has never been written down.