As a teenager, Jose Colmenares spent time sleeping on the streets of Los Angeles as a runaway before ending up in a group home for foster youth.
Besides missing many days of school, he missed out on important conversations about how he would plan for the future, including developing a career. At the group home where he lived from age 15 to 18, he remembers listening to many panel discussions about drug abuse, but never about careers.
Colmenares had always been fascinated by technology, but in foster care, opportunities to learn new computer programs were rare. The group home had restrictive policies around the use of electronic devices, he said. The facility had a computer lab, but it was usually locked because not many of the youth were interested in it, he said.
“They had a computer lab and an art lab, and I think more of the youth were into art and into going to the gym,” he said. “So, it was just, kind of, go with the flow.”
[For more of this story, written by Holden Slattery, go to https://chronicleofsocialchang...d-tech-careers/30989]
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