Dear Andy and Steve and others on the list:
Telecentres are what we make of them and the activities we build around them. The women in the villages around Pondicherry in southern India, like most other women in rural southern India, would rarely come in front of men from outside their own families. That was ten years ago, before the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation set up the now famous knowledge centres with some help from IDRC, Canada. Today, they operate computers and communication devices, answer queries from men, women and anyone who comes into these centres, teach computing skills to others, form self-help groups, take loans from banks, run their own enterprises, and even contest elections. There is a sense of self esteem among them.
Will send you, off the list, some reports and pictures.
Regards.
Arun
----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Carvin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "The Digital Divide Network discussion group" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 9:45 PM
Subject: [DDN] Digital Divide, Telecentres and Iraq
Dr. Steve Eskow wrote:
And it is not clear--to me, at least--that if we had a thousand telecenters
in Iraq that the other divides would shrink.
Hi Steve,
If there were 1,000 telecentres in Iraq that did nothing but provide people email access and an outlet for online gaming, I'd have to agree with you. But when done well, telecenters are epicenters of hope and human potential -- places within the community where people can rally together for educational, economic, cultural and civic development. And when all members of a nation are given equal opportunity to improve the quality of life of their families, some of these other divides, I hope, would lessen over time.
Much of the work of NY Times columnist Thomas L Friedman has dealt with this issue; for example, he's written about Lebanese telecentres serving as ICT job training centres, and how these institutions are helping improve the country's overall socio-economic prospects and strengthen local democratic institutions.
So let's say we could snap our fingers and have 1,000 telecentres across Iraq. Imagine if each one of them addressed their community's most pressing needs. Some of these telecentres would large the local unemployed with the tools they need to gain new skills or start small businesses. Others would focus developing e-mechanisms for the public to interact with civil servants and government officials, making sure that the new government addressed their needs effectively, no matter if they spoke Arabic, Kurdi or Turkmen as their native language. Yet others would assist local mosques in providing health care and human services to people whose lives and livelihoods were destroyed during the war.
If telecentres are merely nonprofit cybercafes lacking any development context, then I'd agree with you. But if we put that aside and see telecentres as serving specific development goals based on each community's particular needs and opportunities, I would have to be more optimistic about the role they could play in helping Iraq get back on its feet and prosper in the coming years.
I know there are at least one or two Iraqis on the list. I hope they're reading this thread; perhaps they would want to comment.
--
-----------------------------------
Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://www.tsunami-info.org
Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com
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