Summer 2000 Interviews ConnectDC2000 Supporters ConnectdcDC2000 Report
About CA-FAM III, Inc. and ConnectDC2000
In one of our earliest undertakings, the Shaw Community Documentation Project, CA-FAM III, Inc.  took a direction similar to that of others who had gone before it.  Born in the Shaw Community of Washington, DC, in 1973, we have been very interested in promoting the concept of meaningful information transference.  We began the process with the distribution of historical information, as did Dr. Carter G. Woodson when he founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1937, in the very same Shaw community.

As CA-FAM III, Inc. embarks on a new journey in the 21st century, we continue the process of information transference with the end-goal of liberation through information.  Technology has been and continues to be incorporated in most of our projects through the use of photography, documentary video, computer and the Internet. ConnectDC2000 is such an undertaking.

As was the Shaw community-based project that began 25 years ago, ConnectDC2000 is also multi-generational –bringing elders and young people together- with common objectives: 

  • Technology training for youth and elders in digital photography, videography and computer-Internet usage;
  • Community history documentation utilizing oral history recordings of elders, with the elders as the educators;
  • Participant production of Internet websites with community history focus; 
  • Intra-community programming between participating neighborhoods in the region with an aim towards discovering similarities/differences in their evolution. 


As with its Shaw community-based predecessor, ConnectDC2000 will seek to identify a common ground for elders and young people to consider history, mutual respect and education. We will also seek to identify existing neighborhood based organizations to identify participants, facilities, technology and training resources.