Community ICTs Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hello Colleagues, I take this opportunity to thank Michael Gurstein for sharing interesting thoughts and the well-written analysis of the so-called "Digital Divide" at the URL he quoted. Below is an inspiring tsunami survival story that I think is an excellent real-life example of what Michael discussed. The article is also available from http://www.digital-review.org/aud16a.htm The hero of the story (Vijayakumar Gunasekaran) was a former volunteer at the Nallavadu village's knowledge centre, one of a dozen information villages in Pondicherry where <www.MSSRF.org> has set up knowledge centres, but now works in Singapore. My own friend, Subbiah Arunachalam of MSSRF, who brought this story to my attention, also informed me that there is a marked difference in the way coastal villages coped with the tsunami disaster. In less fortunate villages, there was very little coordination and considerable chaos, whereas villagers in the four coastal knowledge-centre villages used their databases stored in the knowledge centre computers to organise relief measures and for distributing aid and material received from government and other sources. In two of the knowledge-centre villages, including Nallavadu, local people used the public address system not only before the disaster to warn people to evacuate, but also afterwards to announce relief measures. Our colleague Michael will particularly appreciate his statement that: "Often people criticise these knowledge centres as donor-supported and unlikely to be sustainable. On the tragic 26th of December, the knowledge centres proved their great value. Especially, newspaper after newspaper criticised the government for not having an early warning system as some of the Pacific rim countries have". Regards, David Sawe ------------------------------------------------------------ START OF ARTICLE ------------------------------------------------------------ Phone Call Saved Scores Of Indian Villagers From Tsunami By Chin Saik Yoon in Penang, Malaysia December 2004 The tsunami that struck the coastal communities of several Asian countries on 26 December has been made even more tragic as news begin to break of how a handful of technicians, monitoring the progress of the waves across the seas using the latest ICT systems, had found themselves unable to warn communities standing in harms way. This was not the case with Vijayakumar Gunasekaran, a 27-year old son of a fisherman from Nallavadu village, Pondicherry on the eastern coast of India, who works in Singapore. He had access only to a radio and television on the morning of 26 December. Vijayakumar followed the news of the earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia as it unfolded over the radio and television in Singapore. As the seriousness of the disaster in Aceh sank in he began to worry about the safety of his family living along the Indian coastline facing Aceh. He decided to phone home. Muphazhaqi, his sister answered the phone. She told him that seawater was seeping into their home when he asked what was happening in Nallavadu. Vijayakumar realised at once that his worst fears were rapidly materialising. He asked his sister to quickly leave their home and to also warn other villagers to evacuate the village. "Run out and shout the warning to others" he urged his sister. Her warning reached a couple of quick-thinking villagers who broke down the doors of the community centre set up by the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation where a public address system used routinely to announce sea conditions to the fishermen was housed. The warning from Vijayakumar, collaborated at this time by a second overseas telephone call from Gopu, another villager working abroad, was broadcast across the village using the loud-speaker system. The village's siren was sounded immediately afterwards for the people to evacuate. No one was killed in this village as a result of the timely warnings. Nallavadu is home to 500 families and about 3,630 people. While all lives were saved, the tsunami destroyed 150 houses and 200 fishing boats in the village. ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
