Online giant Yahoo! Inc. has launched a campaign to help schools, nonprofit groups and service organizations understand how to use the Internet, thereby helping bridge the digital divide.

The new Camp Yahoo! is a free instructional package -- available in both English and Spanish -- intended to train people how to use the Internet and help eliminate their fears about the online world.

"While many community organizations and schools have benefited from hardware and infrastructure initiatives, many people still do not have access to the training and education necessary to take full advantage of the Internet," Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang stated. "We feel that Camp Yahoo! is a vital and necessary program that helps to ensure that quality information is accessible to everyone."

The program was designed by education and Internet experts for various age groups and has a different emphasis for both child and adult users.

Camp Yahoo! was created to show how easy it can be to get online, how information can be shared with other users, how it can help make day-to-day tasks more efficient and how the Internet can be a safe, enjoyable for children and adults.

Yahoo! has undertaken several community outreach projects since its inception, including a 1996 initiative that posted the first guide of appropriate and safe Web sites for children, the 12 Days of Giving, various charity auctions, and Yahooligans!, a Web site providing information for adults on how children can safely surf the Internet.

Full text of the article is currently found at:
http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release505.html