5 for Good: Co-working company offers free space to students for remote learning
Workbar is helping Cambridge school students with technology gaps
Workbar is helping Cambridge school students with technology gaps
Workbar is helping Cambridge school students with technology gaps
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic co-working space company Workbar has been able to keep operating.
The cafes at their locations remain fully stocked and they’ve taken careful precautions to screen for the virus, but CEO Sarah Travers said their urban locations, including the space in Cambridge, have been quiet.
"We've kept the lights on at all of our locations, they've been staffed by our community managers,” Travers said. “We have really strong internet and on a daily basis, our member utilization was really quite low."
Travers said she read stories about students running into challenges accessing technology for remote learning and that gave her the idea to offer space for free to local children in need.
"It's certainly something that hits close to home for me,” she said. “My oldest child is in second grade and even having one of my children home throughout this year, trying to do remote learning and trying to work, it's difficult."
Travers said Workbar has been working with the city of Cambridge to identify families in need.
Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui said the city has been doing its best to make sure all students have equal access to remote learning.
"We wanted to make sure everyone had a Chromebook and a hotspot,” Siddiqui said. “We also partnered with Comcast to make sure that there were families who had access to full internet and still, there's gaps."
Some students are struggling with greater hardship than others.
Habtamu Mesene came to the Boston-area from Ethiopia nearly a year ago. He was able to enroll at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School but said he has no family support.
He's been staying at the Y2Y overnight shelter in Harvard Square. When his school went remote due to COVID-19, he had nowhere to go and nowhere to study during the day.
Yoseph Boku is a Harvard student and Y2Y volunteer also from Ethiopia. He translated for Mesene who he said is so thankful to Workbar.
"He is really interested in changing not only his own life but the life of his family back at home,” Boku said. “He really sees education as an avenue of changing his life."
"If we're able to make the life of a handful of students in the Cambridge Public School system a little bit easier during a really difficult time then that's a win for us,” Travers said.