Prof. K.V.Sane of IIT, New Delhi has been at the forefront of a very innovative project being run in the bye-lanes of New Delhi. Termed as - SITA - this project has trained almost 450 women in computer skills.
During its two year operation, SITA has recorded many achievemnts like development of a multilingual Resource Package, design of a user-friendly training strategy, and using the Package and the strategy to train nearly 450 women from a disadvantaged background. One of SITA's pleasant experience was the ability of most of the trainees to pick up computer skills in spite of limited educational background and poor communication ability, particularly in English. However this did not prevent them from doing satisfactory work of diverse types like data entry, word processing, DTP, etc. They have also processed manuscripts in English, Hindi, Punjabi and texts involving scientific and mathematical symbols for books, newletters, journals, Conference Proceedings etc. All this work has been received from international sources and samples can be sent for inspection. For details please visit www.kcetu.org and www.sitaa.org . Another pleasant experience was the highly encouraging response from the international community through awards and invitations to showcase the project. A surprising and disappointing experience was the poor response of the job market to the project trainees. The inability of a majority of trainees to find jobs shows that good training by itself does not serve the needs of the individuals from the disadvantaged sector. If SITA type of efforts are to survive and grow, identification and implementation of income generating schemes must be given the highest priority. It is here where I seek the views and experiences of the GKD group - on how and where we can improve upon this project. Here the skill are available - but the next step on the ladder is not accessible. How can they be taught the marketing skills needed to market their earlier skills - without draining their alreadt meagre resources. Where can we find the org. or groups who will be willing to give them the jobs based on their computer skills - without paying too much emphasis to their lack of communication skills. Mridula Murgai ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** 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.globalknowledge.org>
