“Telecentre Sustainability: Misnomers, Challenges, and Opportunities” by Basheerhamad Shadrach and Shipra Sharma is now available for download. This 10-page report tackles the issue of sustainability among telecentres, an increasingly critical concern among the telecentre community throughout the world. In the paper, the authors propose the strengthening of five pillars for sustainability and argue that, “for the long term survival of telecentres in developing countries, a sustainable ecosystem that consists of all the telecentre stakeholders in an interacting and interdependent relationship and an enabling policy environment is vital.”

Download a copy of the report here.

UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT is a new section where we share with you inspiring stories of Telecentre.org members and partners through brief interviews. In the first article under this series, we interview Ammar Jaffri, Telecentre.org online community member and founder of the eVillage project in Pakistan.

TCF: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your relationship with Telecentre.org Foundation. How long have you been a member?

Jaffri: Three years. I was just browsing about the use of ICTs by communities. And then found out about it. I was a government officer but I had a passion for learning in the fields of development, in education, etc. and I wanted to bring some global practices in Pakistan. I wanted to give back to people. And I found this Foundation trying to do good, trying to form a global platform, so I joined and I’m here.

TCF: How has your membership helped you in your telecentre work?

Jaffri: I kept on reading the material on the website and based on my knowledge from this website, I kept on improving my thoughts, my ideas of bringing employment to the people of Pakistan and meanwhile, I started this project, that is called eVillage.

TCF: Can we hear more about the eVillage Project?

Jaffri: Well, I am an active member of the PSA (Pakistan Social Association), an NGO working in Pakistan for 60 years. So through that NGO, I started the eVillage program. I started it around the same time, almost 3 years back.  eVillage had a concept of promoting the use of ICTs in rural areas. It was a campaign to educate people on the concept of the use of ICTs for uplifting the rural areas of Pakistan. The idea was to educate decision makers, the university people, the NGOs on the concept so that they can use this knowledge for promoting their respective projects. We do a lot of seminars, workshop in all big cities of Pakistan to promote this concept. People were told about WSIS initiatives, Millennium Development Goals, good practices of rural ICTs in Sri Lanka, India, countries similar to Pakistan…But then about a year and half ago, someone advised me to do some work on the ground also.

TCF:  What did they mean by “on the ground”?

Jaffri: To do some real work in a village. Before that, I was just telling people about it. So, through a project in a village that is called Merabagwal, so what I did, I worked with the National University of Science and Technology. They were with me in promoting this project. So what I did, I placed computers in the village and brought internet there.

TCF: Can you elaborate more on that?

Jaffri: Well, first we started to bring in the computers and then started the computer trainings with people. But it was very hard to bring internet because there were no communication, no lines. So I requested a government department, it’s called the USF (Universal Service Fund). They sponsored this project of bringing internet to the village. They brought fiber optic cable to this village. From there, we started the internet trainings. The USF people trained people in internet, the university trained people in using the computers, some courses on MS Word, Powerpoint, etc…Now if you can see the progress in Merabagwal, the eVillage center is a place where medical supplies are provided, there is a medical assistant. We have opened a library there. Very recently, we have opened a women’s vocation center there.

TCF: That’s very impressive. So, Merabagwal was the first eVillage you established. What was the second one?

Jaffri: Chirah was the second one. It was started just 8 months before, in 2010. The beauty of Chirah (eVillage Center) is it’s based in a school. There are 500 girls there, and they come from different parts in the mountains. So my plan was if I build the capacity of these 500 women and they go back and teach their own people.

TCF: How do you pick the villages for your eVillage project?

Jaffri: Ah. This is a very important question. There are two criteria. One is they actually should be a hub for small villages (in the mountains), where people normally come for their daily lives, daily working. So this Merabagwal is a very old village—300 years old—and they are surrounded by mountains and is a hub. My purpose was that if I build the capacity of this village, then the people can come down and learn and then they go back and then we will open more centers there out.

TCF: What is the second criterion?

Jaffri: The second criterion is that people should be willing to understand and willing to contribute. You know I went to a lot of villages but I found some people were expecting everything from me. They were not willing to contribute, not willing to give electricity for this. Unless community people are involved, they can never progress. So it is very important that they are involved in this.

TCF: Going back to Merabagwal, how many computers do you have in place?

Jaffri: Right now, there are 10 computers. They were gifted by Intel and they are brand new computers.

TCF:  Who manages the telecentre? Who’s there?

Jaffri: You know the first class (to be trained), in which there were more than 30 boys and girls, from there I got two leaders, one woman and one man and right now they are managing there.

TCF:  Are they working fulltime there?

Jaffri: No, they are not fulltime. They have their own jobs but the woman attends in the morning and the man attends in the evening. Right now, there are more than 60 students enrolled in the center, with ages ranging from 12 years to 30 years.

TCF: And they are mostly receiving digital literacy training?

Jaffri: Yes, they are getting computer training, typing into an Excel sheet, how to use Word, how to browse the internet…

TCF: Are the services in the centre free?

Jaffri: Initially, it was free but I wanted to give compensation to this boy and girl who are teaching them. So we started with a small fee, approximately PHP 50 in your country (USD 1) for the whole month. So through this, we have some money, which is not used for other purposes, it’s given to the people who teach them.

TCF: But what about electricity costs and other utilities?

Jaffri: Ah. That is courtesy of the person who has given the place. He is the village headman. It is courtesy of that person. You know, that is why I want the involvement of the community also. This, the electricity, the place, it started through that.

TCF: Last question—what would you like to tell people who are interested in doing something similar to what you’ve done?

Jaffri: I would like to give this advice to people: don’t get discouraged by initial problems. You will have distance in the area, you will have non-cooperation, you will feel a lot of disappointments but that is the time of your test. Afterwards, people will start appreciating you, people will start acknowledging what you are doing, but you will have to bear with the initial six months.

To know more about the eVillage project, please visit http://evillage.net.pk.

Ammar Jaffri with the Telecentre.org Foundation staff in Manila

The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) of Thailand together with the Research Center of Communication and Development Knowledge Management (CCDKM), and Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU) working for Thaitelecentre.org, recently announced its intention to train 100,000 Thai women as part of its contribution to the Telecentre Women: Digital Literacy Campaign. The commitment is, thus far, the highest training pledge received under the campaign.

According to CCDKM Director Kamolrat Intaratat, a consultant of Thaitelecentre.org, “Under the umbrella of Thaitelecentre.org, we have been training our underserved women (both rural and urban) since 2007. The starting point is how to use ICT to make them earn more and attain a better quality of life for themselves and their family. We have therefore established initiatives such as The E-shop (Easy Shop) and ThaiTelecentreMall.com, which is the current E-shop provided by MICT, Thailand. Our goal is for each province to set-up and manage their own E-shop. Through the E-shops that have already been established, we have seen a lot of value-added local products emerge, and many previously invisible women have started to become more visible in their own family, community, and the country. Aside from “E-earning,” many of the women we’ve trained have also become telecentre operators themselves, or telecentre committee members, ICT community trainers, volunteers, and active participants in the telecentre community. Many of these women have increased access to education, with many of them becoming e-Learning developers/e-courseware developer, etc. Already in its 5^th year, Thaitelecentre.org led by MICT Thailand is proud to have made a lot of changes and have seen a lot of growth, confidence, and commitment among these previously underserved women. Currently, the number of women among ICT leaders keeps increasing at all levels, and along with this, we hope, comes an improved quality of life for themselves and for their families as well.”

MICT Thailand and CCDKM have also pledged to nominate at least 4 women to the Global Search for 100 Outstanding Telecentre Women Managers taking place this year.

 

On June 27, the Philippines commenced its Lead Training of Trainers at the CICT-NCC Building in Diliman, Quezon City. Thetraining workshop, which is organized by the Philippine Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT) together with the Philippine Community eCenter Network (PhilCeCNet) and supported by Intel®, is the first ever training of trainers to be conducted under the Telecentre Women: Digital Literacy Campaign, a joint program by the ITU and Telecentre.org Foundation.

The 5-day training covered topics such as “Resource Mobilization and Marketing Strategy for Digital Literacy,” “Use of Online Collaboration Tools,” and the complete modules of the Intel® Easy Steps program. Tess Camba, Acting Executive Director of Telecentre.org Foundation, who was present at the launch of the training, gave an overview of the Telecentre Women’s Campaign and cited the partnership with Intel® as an important component, saying “The Philippines is one of the three countries where the Intel® Easy Steps program will be piloted as part of our partnership with Intel for the campaign. Later this year, Brazil and Kenya will also receive training as pilot sites for the Intel® Easy Steps program.”

During the workshop, Monalisa Sasing, Intel® Easy Steps Trainer, described Intel® Easy Steps, as a digital literacy program especially designed for adult learners. “Intel® Easy Steps promotes the independent learner approach,” reported Ms. Sasing.

Twenty-seven Community eCenter (CeC) men and women managers and regional IT coordinators all over the country were selected to participate in the training.