On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 6:28 PM, Parthan SR <[email protected]> wrote:
> Wow, hearing something similar to what I have been with (through > my employer) for the past 2 years :) We operate Rural Telcenters, > or Technology Enabled Rural Kiosks, all over Karnataka and few [snip] > their utility bills. They want a place with such a facility that > they can easily pay their bills in their own villages. True. > Although the idea of Wiki-enabled Kiosk sounds interesting, we > also need to count the literacy level of the villagers to use such The NGO worker's main job is to be the collector and editor of information about that local area. He would be qualified enough to help the villagers out - one of his key responsibilities will be to bring awareness through meaningful practical applications (I don't know what this could be - but one such thing I can imagine is in combination with some other NGO - like echoupal). > a facility. How will they go and find an information they want? Do > they know to type the keyword to get their information? While > providing a reliable internet connection over rural India still > remains a challenge, the further challenge is maintaining these so > called kiosks. The main problem is high frequency of power outages > and management of resources. The answer to this is in my original email (sorry if that was long and made you skip through sections!). The basic idea being, they merely borrow books from this library like they would borrow from any library. They don't even have to know a thing about computers - not even the fact that the 'books' they're reading / editing are stored on the Internet. Infact, the 'computer' in the library need not even be 'on' all the time. But this is all only the library's job. The NGO worker ensures people get awareness and thinks towards benefiting his locality. He teaches them and helps them with information useful to the locality and their life styles. He is not just a 'librarian'. Of course, this needs smart and dedicated NGO workers - not just people who can deliver food / materials. But I'm confident we aren't short of such people. > To mention some similar endeavors, check out Nemmadi project by > GoK and RBCs operated by Comat in Karnataka and by OneRoof in > certain parts of TN. Thanks for the references. I'll check these out. -Suraj -- Home: http://sunson.in/ _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, email [email protected] with "unsubscribe <password> <address>" in the subject or body of the message. http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
