South End activist offers advice, computer training

Yawu Miller

Barbara Collins’ introduction to community activism came after she lost her job at a John Hancock Insurance and began living on unemployment checks.

With free time on hand, Collins began holding regular cookouts in the plaza of the Villa Victoria, the South End housing development where she lives.

“A lot of the adults and the teenagers would hang out with me and keep me company,” she says. “A lot of the people I met came from families without a lot of money. Some of them were only eating two meals a day.”

Using computer skills she had gained from working at John Hancock, Collins began volunteering in the development’s El Batey Community Technology Center. Soon thereafter, she was on the payroll. Five years ago, she became the manager.

Five days a week, she opens the doors of the technology center to everyone from elementary school children to elderly residents of the development, who are able to check emails, conduct online research or receive training in software use.

While the computers are the center’s main draw, Collins’ steady presence there and her rapport with the kids who use the facility provides an added benefit, as becomes apparent when Marlon Mejia, a junior at Snowden International High School, shows up looking for a job reference.

“What makes you think I should sign this for you?” Collins challenges the teen.

“You know I’m responsible,” Mejia replies. “I come in here every day.”

“If I put my name here, you’re not going to let me down?”

“Of course not.”

In an era when state and federal budget cuts have gutted youth programming, a community technology center is an oasis for many teens and pre-teens looking for a warm place to hang out on a blustery afternoon. The Villa’s Batey Center has also become an informal one-stop social service agency where Collins dispenses advice, assistance and a dash of discipline, demanding a “please” and “thank you” from every young client.

The center offers computer classes for people from age 5 to senior citizens. There are 17 work stations in the center’s classroom and five in the cyber cafe area.

Collins, who has a 19-year-old son she raised in the Villa, says she has watched many of the children grow up in the predominantly Puerto Rican South End housing development.

“They come to me with a lot of their problems,” she said. “I’m not a licensed social worker, but I try to help them.”

Even teenagers who have run afoul of the law are welcome in the center, as long as they respect Collins’ code of conduct. The key, Collins said, is respect.

“When you respect them, they respect you,” she said. “We have to show them there are people in the world who care about them. A lot of teens need someone to listen to them, even if you can’t do anything about their problems. If you just listen to them, that helps a lot.”

In addition to her job as director of the technology center, Collins serves as a parent advocate, working with parents in the Villa. Until four years ago, she worked with teens in the adjacent Cathedral housing development. Bush administration budget cuts to HUD cut off funding for that development’s computer center and ended her position there.

Like many who work with children in the city, Collins laments the effects that state and federal budget cuts have had on youth.

“They have nowhere to go and nothing to do,” she said. “They need sports. They need things to help them relieve their stress. They don’t have enough. They don’t have enough of anything.

“In the cold you see them hanging out. Sometimes I stay open an extra hour on my own time just to give them a place to stay.”

Collins, who grew up in Dorchester, lived in Medford before moving into the Villa. A graduate of East Boston High School, she is currently attending classes at Bunker Hill Community College.

“The kids are watching me going to college,” she said. “I think it’s having an impact on them. If I’m 43 and I’m going, what do they have to lose?”