Transcript Empowering the poor through rural ICT centres SEWA Dhara Patel

Empowering the poor
through rural ICT centres
Dhara Patel
Jomiben Rajgor
SEWA
2nd December, 2002
SEWA
Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) is a Memberbased Organisation of over half a million Poor informal sector
women workers. It is a confluence of three movementsLabour, Co-op and Women’s movement.
SEWA’s Objectives
• Full Employment
• Self Reliance
IT and Disaster Management
• Prompt relief & rehabilitation
• The Communication Centres
were set up which comprised of
email and internet connections,
satellite phones and VSAT
equipments.
• SEWA used SatComm mode for
interactive talk-back sessions for
planning with the communities.
• SEWA was the first organisation
to provide the data on the people
effected by earthquake to the
GOG
Community Learning Centre
• At present SEWA’s activity is mainly concentrated at
District level.
• As part of a wider process of decentralisation, SEWA has
developed Community Learning Centre in each cluster
(cluster consist of a group of seven to eight villages).
• The functions proposed for each centre are – Information – collection and dissemination
– Social Security – through healthcare, housing
– Co-ordination – PRI, Block, District, state others
– Livelihood support – through developing supportive
system at local
– Building support – training for the community
• Disaster preparedness – training
Disaster Preparedness Training
• The main aim of CLC is
to reduce vulnerabilities
and strengthen people’s
capacity to cope with
multi hazard disaster.
• This centre comprises of
internet and email (24
hours) and will also
serve as emergency
shelters for the villages
during a natural disaster
How ICT will help in providing
Sustainable livelihood Security
• ICT Training- first step towards empowerment
• Training related to their skill-base
• Software development taking Community Based
Approach and economic activity
• Training which leads them to greater efficiency and
greater productivity
• Software development and training in local language
• Imparting training to the members as well as to their
children and youth
• As a model in increasing literacy, SEWA initiated
‘JEEVANSHALA’ life education, which looks after
imparting education but related to their skill-base
Database Management in CLC
• Collecting and maintaining data like
– village profile
– data on camps, hospitals
– population
– Socio economic
– Environment
– Demography
– Topography
– Occupation
– Education
– Health
– About Panchayati Raj Institutions
– Water Land Forest
• Providing internet as well as email facility
Need for setting CLC
• The CLC serves a variety of demands
• Clearinghouse for communication and information dissemination
-Centre is the communication and coordination hubs of the
village
-Centre holds imp village information such as the villagewide
database, village profiles
-Staff members based in centre will coordinate in collection of
such info and organise and analyse the data
• Coordination of Disaster preparedness activities
• Hub for capacity-building and livelihood activities
• Provide supportive services
• Training to the school children as well as youth.
All the activities that are discussed earlier will be integrated
in-depth in CLC
ICT in Community Learning Centre
• Imparting training to our members on basic computer usage
• Training on customised software (for respective activities)
• Training on using internet
• Maintaining data in computer for research/ innovative activity etc.
• Providing training through Sat Comm programmes
• Integrating Sat Comm programmes with IT (Video Conferencing)
• Initiating Tele-medicine by way of linking with different hospitals
(video-conferencing)
• Collecting relevant content for database and website
Networking SEWA:
Achieving Rural Connectivity
The Issues:
1. The high cost of travelling between the district associations and
Ahmedabad for meetings, mentor guidance, training programmes
and capacity building.
2. The loss in person-hours, especially when travelling between the
two distances.
3.
The limited outreach of the programme because less participants
take part due to the long distances (especially members).
4.
The drop in output and efficiency levels of the key development
programmes due to inefficient management and monitoring.
Next steps
• Upscale and expand to all the 14 districts
• Replication via taking the community based
approach
• Efficient service and content delivery at the
grassroots level
• Partnering with other NGOs, Academic
institutions and Government bodies
Thank You