Youth Maker Corp

Fab House is bringing digital fabrication technology to the Glenville neighborhood.  In partnership with experts from the neighborhood and around the world to work with residents on projects and ideas for learning, community development, and entrepreneurship.

There continues to be a significant-tech divide that leaves African-American communities behind and unable to leverage technology for the growing STEM opportunities in school, work, and business. Launching this project in a community that's over 90% African-American will provide residents access to technology in a familiar and supportive environment.

Fab House is a resident-driven program, and we are training residents in digital fabrication technology.  This summer we are launching the first round of our resident ambassador program with youth.  We want to recruit youth from Glenville to participate in this summer program. The program comprises two parts; training and teaching.  First, youth will be trained for up to 20 hours in digital fabrication technologies. Specifically, they will learn about design software, 3D printing, and vinyl cutting. This training course will prepare participants to teach other Glenville residents. The first teaching assignment will be with a summer youth camp for middle school students. 

Youth ambassadors will be paid a stipend for participating in this summer training and teaching experience.

We have already identified a master fabricator to train the youth and secured a summer camp teaching assignment for them.  We are identifying prospective youth ambassadors.  Now we need to raise funding to pay youth for dedicating their time and effort to teaching their neighborhood about digital fabrication and to provide them with training equipment and materials.

This program will help the Glenville neighborhood learn and understand digital fabrication technology, create paid workforce opportunities for youth in the neighborhood, and support young people in building skills that they can use in college and future careers. This program will also create ample opportunities for the residents of Glenville to learn new technology.

“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” -Robert Collier