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Supporting Bay Area nonprofits focused on homelessness
June 29, 2016
“How many homeless people are in San Francisco?” “How do people become homeless?” “How can I help homeless people?”
These are just some of the questions people ask Google about homelessness in San Francisco, according to
Google Trends
. Many of these questions don’t have simple answers, and
decades of efforts
have not significantly moved the needle. There are more than 6,600 homeless people in the city, many of whom are children. People who experience homelessness often struggle from chronic stress, trauma, and frequent moves, and are unable to take advantage of many educational or economic opportunities.
We want to do our part in tackling this complex issue. Since 2014, Google.org has invested more than $5 million in Bay Area nonprofits who are working to combat homelessness, and today we’re committing an additional $1.2 million for these efforts. The Google News Lab is also
joining the San Francisco Chronicle and 70+ news outlets
across the country to help raise awareness as part of the Beyond Homelessness initiative, launching today.
The organizations we’re supporting are tackling the issue of homelessness in new ways and from multiple angles, and include
Hamilton Family Center
,
Larkin Street Youth Services
,
HandUp
,
First Place for Youth
,
Lava Mae
,
LifeMoves
,
Abode Services
-
Project Welcome Home
,
GLIDE
,
Downtown Streets Team
and
Destination: Home
.
In San Francisco and across the Bay area, these 10 organizations provide a range of services and programs focused on rapid re-housing and prevention, basic services, job training and more. Our newest grantee,
Destination: Home
, plans to use their $1 million grant to build a rapid re-housing system for homeless families in Mountain View and Sunnyvale in the form of security deposits, motel stays, time-limited rental assistance, move-in assistance, and a support system to make sure individuals and families find stable housing.
HandUp
has helped both homeless and low-income individuals and families overcome poverty via a giving platform that connects donors directly with neighbors who are struggling to meet basic needs.
The Downtown Streets Team
provides a work experience program for homeless men and women through beautification projects in San Francisco’s Civic Center/Mid-Market neighborhoods. And
Lava Mae
is expanding their mobile showers for the homeless to Los Angeles with an additional $200K in Google.org grant funding.
The Downtown Streets Team helps people like Norman “Will” Williams gain work experience. Learn more
on their website.
One in 25 kids in San Francisco Unified School District are homeless, and many families face at least a nine-month wait list for temporary shelter. In 2015, we supported the
Hamilton Family Center
(HFC) with a $1 million grant aimed to reduce the homeless family wait list for shelter by creating direct lines of communication with SFUSD teachers and staff to report and respond to new and potential cases of homelessness. HFC has already seen a 25 percent reduction in the family wait list, and hopes to continue that momentum.
Homelessness in our cities is a challenge decades in the making—and will require continued innovation and dedication to solve. We’re committed to helping, through financial support, volunteering and raising awareness. Find out more about this issue on
our Google Trends site
and join us in finding solutions by visiting
Beyond Homelessness
or contributing to any of our grantee organizations.
Posted by Justin Steele, Bay Area Giving Lead, Google.org
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t51u82Gg5pg/V4cJDtzfrZI/AAAAAAAASpw/c4xslSQpcrw7xK8Tdcly5_sAPrgxhaZwACLcB/s200/10-1.jpg
Technology to help teachers do what they do best
June 27, 2016
This week our
Google for Education
team will be joining thousands of educators at the annual
ISTE conference
. Follow along on their
blog
and
Twitter
for the latest news and updates. -Ed.
Great teachers inspire us, listen to us and learn from us; they bring the most mundane subjects to life. Technology can help great teachers do what they do best—stimulating minds and fostering skills in the next generation—and make learning even more rewarding for students. So we’re excited by the
updates and improvements to our tools for the classroom
we’re announcing this week at the
ISTE conference
, one of the largest education technology gatherings in the world.
Expeditions for all
Since we launched the Expeditions Pioneer Program last September, more than a
million students
from 11 countries have taken one of our 200+ virtual reality trips—from the Great Barrier Reef, to the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu. Today, we’re making Expeditions available to everyone. To get started, all teachers need to do is download the
Expeditions app
onto a set of devices and choose where in the world they want to take their class. The app is
available today for Android
and will be available for iPhones and iPads soon.
While Expeditions can be used with many of the devices schools or students already have,
Best Buy Education
will also be making Expeditions kits available for schools to purchase. These kits will contain everything teachers need to bring their classes on amazing Expeditions: a tablet, virtual reality viewers and a router to connect them all.
Google Cast for Education
Sharing information on the classroom’s big screen helps students learn from one another. But today, students have to physically connect their computers to the projector to share their screens with the class. To open classroom collaboration and bring projecting into the 21st century, we’re announcing
Google Cast for Education
, a free Chrome app that lets students and teachers share their screens wirelessly from everywhere in the classroom, no new hardware required. Cast for Education carries video and audio across complex school networks, has built-in controls for teachers, and is integrated with
Google Classroom
.
Quizzes in Google Forms
Getting feedback helps students learn and teachers teach. But grading tests and quizzes is time-consuming; teachers often have to take time away from other tasks to do it, and if it’s not done promptly, everyone misses out on the opportunity to learn from the things students got wrong. Starting today,
Quizzes in Google Forms
will grade multiple choice and checkbox questions automatically—so teachers can spend less time grading work and more time teaching.
Teachers can set correct answers in Forms and even add review materials in the form of explanations, supplemental websites, or review videos—so students can get quick, informative feedback on how to improve. Plus, teachers can get an instant snapshot on what their students understand, so they know which lessons need more explanation or what to teach next.
Creative apps on Chromebooks
Teachers tell us educational apps on Chromebooks help them improve skills like problem-solving, teamwork, communication and creativity. In collaboration with teachers at EdTechTeacher, we’re announcing a collection of creative apps on Chromebooks that schools can now purchase at a discount:
Explain Everything
,
Soundtrap
, and
WeVideo
. These apps let students demonstrate their understanding of curriculum in their own way by creating unique animations, music, and videos.
Students use creative apps at Muller Road Middle School in South Carolina
As technology becomes an integral component of our classrooms, we also want it to be so easy to use that it fades into background, allowing teachers to spend their time doing what they love: engaging and inspiring students.
Posted by Bram Bout, Director, Google for Education
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0W6hCYoTSzc/V3RKu90C3GI/AAAAAAAASnc/Bih4KnjUc6kwNRHhxH1k8AMjQ6roMEg3QCLcB/s1600/Expedition.jpg
Picture this: you woke up today with a headache. It’s been getting worse all day, and you aren’t sure if you should be worried or not. So you open
the Google app
and start searching for your symptoms. After 20 minutes digging through health forums, chances are you're overwhelmed by all the complicated medical terms and breaking out in a sweat—whether that’s related to the headache or the overdose of info is unclear!
You’re not alone. Roughly 1 percent of searches on Google (think:
millions!
) are symptom-related. But health content on the web can be difficult to navigate, and tends to lead people from mild symptoms to scary and unlikely conditions, which can cause unnecessary anxiety and stress.
So starting in the coming days, when you ask Google about symptoms like “
headache on one side
,” we’ll show you a list of related conditions (“headache,” “migraine,” “tension headache,” “cluster headache,” “sinusitis,” and “common cold”). For individual symptoms like “
headache
,” we’ll also give you an overview description along with information on self-treatment options and what might warrant a doctor’s visit. By doing this, our goal is to help you to navigate and explore health conditions related to your symptoms, and quickly get to the point where you can do more in-depth research on the web or talk to a health professional.
We create the list of symptoms by looking for health conditions mentioned in web results, and then checking them against high-quality medical information we’ve collected from doctors for our
Knowledge Graph
. We worked with a team of medical doctors to carefully review the individual symptom information, and experts at Harvard Medical School and Mayo Clinic evaluated related conditions for a representative sample of searches to help improve the lists we show.
That said, symptom search (like all medical information on Google) is intended for informational purposes only, and you should always consult a doctor for medical advice. We rely on search results, and we reflect what’s on the web. Because of this, your feedback is especially important to us; we’ll use it to keep improving the results we show. You’ll notice in the weeks following launch that when we show symptom search we’ll automatically ask you if the results are helpful.
We’re rolling this update out on mobile over the next few days, in English in the U.S. to start. Over time, we hope to cover more symptoms, and we also want to extend this to other languages and internationally. So the next time you’re worried about your “
child with knee pain
” (even though it’s probably just growing pains), or have some symptoms you’re too embarrassed to run by your roommate, a Google search will be a helpful place to start.
Posted by Veronica Pinchin, Product Manager
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xmPv09K0V3Y/V2XKa-8W73I/AAAAAAAASkg/-80cw-ml6Uglf5XzIDzzdPBAilWILTRzwCLcB/s1600/Symptoms.jpg
Showing support on World Refugee Day
June 20, 2016
When Walaa posted a picture on social media that spoke out against violence in his hometown of Jairoud, Syria, it earned him three months of violent detention. He fled the country with his family through Turkey and into Greece, where they now live in a refugee camp near the Macedonian border.
Though the Internet played a role in his flight from Syria, connectivity has played a crucial role in helping him rebuild his life in Greece. While living in Greek refugee camps, Walaa used YouTube to learn English, and his language skills are now so good that he’s served as a community advocate and translator. He says he’s far from done: next, he hopes to learn Greek.
As refugees across Europe adapt to new contexts, access to information and education are crucial to help them develop the skills they need. Last fall we encouraged you to donate to a public matching campaign to help refugees access not only basic humanitarian aid, but also resources to create a bridge to their new communities. Since then we’ve helped the
International Rescue Committee
build an
online information hub
for refugees,
Mercy Corps
develop
Translation Cards
to allow field workers to communicate across languages more easily, partner with
NetHope
to install low-cost WiFi in refugee camps, and support refugee education through
Kiron
, a nonprofit providing refugee-tailored university courses available both online and offline.
In addition to Walaa, we’ve heard from other refugees who are finding ways to adjust thanks to Internet and education access. For example, Ahmed is an Iraqi computer scientist now living in Berlin. While waiting for his residence permit, he began teaching coding classes at refugee welcome centers as part of
Project Reconnect
, an initiative we launched with NetHope to equip NGOs with Chromebooks. Kashif, who traveled through seven countries from a small Pakistani town to Berlin, is studying online with Kiron and dreams of working as an engineer at NASA.
Ahmed giving CODE.org classes to young refugees through the Chromebooks in a refugee center in Berlin
On World Refugee Day, we hope you’ll take time
to hear stories
of more refugees who are working so hard to rebuild their lives.
We also want to thank everyone across the globe who
donated
last year, and encourage you to continue to support our partners in their critical work. Though the impact of this refugee crisis will be felt for many years to come, we’ll continue to look for ways to contribute.
Posted by Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google.org
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ya7jH9LzpcU/V2XHIvzDKQI/AAAAAAAASj8/PHTWtKB8uBAXEUPJpT6f_Q15nSiILL-zQCLcB/s1600/Reconnect_hero.jpg
Digital Love Letters for fathers who are incarcerated
June 17, 2016
This past Mother's Day, we shared
#LoveLetters
, a partnership among nonprofits to give the children of incarcerated parents a chance to have their voices heard. Today, in celebration of Father’s Day, you can watch Love Letters for incarcerated fathers. This work is part of our continued commitment to
raising awareness about racial injustice
, and to
bearing witness
to the human costs of mass incarceration.
The costs of mass incarceration have disproportionately affected the lives of Black men. From 1980 to 2007, about
one in three
of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African-American. And if that current trend continues, one in three Black boys born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. All in all, we’re now at a point where there are
more African-American men incarcerated
in the U.S. than the total prison populations of India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Germany, Finland, Israel and England combined.
Children share digital “Love Letters” for their fathers who are incarcerated
Many of these men are also fathers—and their children have suffered greatly. The loss of a father to incarceration
adversely
affects children’s educational, social and emotional well-being, even decades later.
Children with an incarcerated parent
are three times more likely to have behavioral problems or depression, and at least twice as likely to suffer from learning disabilities, ADD/ADHD, and anxiety.
This is what Love Letters conveys: the hurt of the children left behind—and the enduring bond between a child and a parent despite the barrier of prison walls. So for Father's Day, we worked with the NGOs
Pops the Club
and
Place4Grace
to encourage children and youth in California to share their love letters to their fathers behind bars. We're also working with the California Department of Corrections to share the video with fathers behind bars throughout the state.
To learn about criminal justice reform legislation now going through Congress, visit
sentencingproject.org
,
vera.org
, or
brennancenter.org
. As David Drummond, Alphabet’s vice president of corporate development, said at an event this week: “We like disruption, and if there’s a system worth disrupting, it’s the criminal justice system.” We hope that by raising awareness about the impact of mass incarceration on children and families, we can help to change it. Please join us in this effort—watch the video and share with #LoveLetters on social media.
Posted by Malika Saada Saar, Public Policy and Government Relations Senior Counsel – Civil and Human Rights
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EYfRUNBt158/V2gktZ4D69I/AAAAAAAASk8/0ZmJRbHs_2kmdqgQbiRRydqKTTRV8zt9gCLcB/s1600/LoveLetters.jpg
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