CONNECT A SCHOOL, CONNECT A COMMUNITY

Choudhary, a former BBC journalist, with the support from the International
Center for Journalists, with whom he is a Knight
International Journalism Fellow, began an experiment in citizen journalism.

"We understood it would have to be cheap and that voice would be
key -- because people are not comfortable with reading and writing", he said. The
initial phase of the experiment, which revolved around the internet and community
radio stations, "failed completely", he admitted. But then he took a different tack,
focusing on mobile phones, which have a 74% penetration rate in India.

"Mobile is the most democratic tool in India today", said Choudhary.
Although the mobile penetration rate in rural areas was about half the national level
(36%), phones were still a common sight even in the most remote villages. "When we
started working in 2004-5 in the villages, we did not see mobile phones. But there
has been a sea-change. Mobile phone use has exploded".

The result, CGNet Swara (roughly,
the "voice of Chhattisgarh")
is a voice portal that allows anyone with a mobile phone to record or listen to news
and items of interest. The operation is simple: on dialing the service's number, users
press "1" to record a report, or "2" to listen to one. Once a report is recorded,
it is verified and edited by a team of moderators before being made accessible on
the service.

The service "did better than we ever expected", said Choudhary.
He added that in the two years since it began, Swara has had 9,000 users, logged more
than 30,000 phone calls and published 750 news stories, including a number which have
had a big impact. For example, in January last year, Swara published a citizen journalist
interview with Pitbasu Bhoi, a disabled man who said he had not been paid wages for
100 days of work on the government's flagship rural job guarantee scheme.

Other stories have shared allegations including villages being razed in raids by security
forces, police brutality, food programs for poor children going months without receiving
supplies, and resistance to land being taken over for mining.

(Source: CNN News)

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Recent mobile phone initiatives in Bangladesh are allowing patients to reach a health
worker for advice at no cost 24 hours a day, receive prenatal care reminders and even
send complaints about patient care.





“It is difficult to manage doctors for [a national population of] 140 million people.
We are using mobile phone service to bridge this treatment gap“, Abul Kalam Azad,
a senior official at the Directorate General of
Health Services, told IRIN.





Close to 60 percent of the population - some 85 million people - use mobile phones
in Bangladesh, according to a December 2011 report from the country’s telecommunications
regulatory commission.




Cut off from formal medical care, some patients turn to untrained or “fake” doctors,
leading to fatal remedies, said Azad, who wants to counter this trend with sound health
advice.




Since 2009, the government has provided cell phones to 482 sub-district and district
government hospitals, which are used as round-the-clock hotlines staffed by health
workers.




Nationwide there is one doctor for every 3,200 residents and one hospital bed for
every 1,738 people, according to government data published in 2011.




While this proportion of doctors to residents exceeds the World Health Organization
(WHO) recommended minimum of one doctor per 10,000
residents to ensure basic health services, the picture in rural areas is markedly
different.





“There are many hard-to-reach areas where it is difficult for the people to quickly
rush to the hospitals. These people are getting health advice by the mobile phone
health service”, said Azad. The country is in the bottom 20 countries ranked by NGO Save
the Children for health workers’ ability to reach patients in need.

(Source: IRIN News)


Furhter details

The start of the End User Computing learnership programme which will equip 34 young
women in Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality was celebrated by the Progressive Women’s
Movement of South Africa (PWMSA) and Bytes People
Solutions (BPS)

This follows the signing of an MoU between the three primary partners PWMSA, Bytes
People Solutions and the Media, Advertising, Information and Communication Technologies
Sector Training Authority (MICT Seta) to train 180 young women in ICT in six municipalities.
The municipalities are Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Metsweding, Sedibeng, Wesrand and Johannesburg
Central.

Funding for the programme was provided by the Media, Advertising, Information and
Communication Technologies Sector Training Authority (MICT Seta). The group of women
from the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality are the second to start the programme
following the commencement of the training in the Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality
in July 2011.

The learners are offered employment utilizing the workplace networks of the three
partners. Learners are employed for one year, during which they will receive workplace
training and coaching.

Bytes People Solutions, a company in the Bytes Technology Group, wholly owned by JSE-listed
Altron, has a long-standing track record in ICT training, with more than 800 people
a year passing through its doors, 59% of them female.

Dr. Ramokgopa, who is also a working committee member of the PWMSA
and convener of the Gauteng Chapter, said that the programme had attracted young women
who strongly believed that it would enhance their employment prospects. "The most
important partners in this programme are the participants themselves", she said. "There
is a high ICT illiteracy rate among women in the country, and this group of graduates
is helping to address that. It’s vital that we continue to educate females in this
industry as they play a key role in economic development”.

(Source: SkillsPortal)

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In the villages of Nepal, the community radio programme Sajha Awaj (common voice) allows discussions on issues of importance to the women of the community through transmission to more than 160 community radio stations.  The programme is produced by the Association of Community Radio Broadcasters Nepal (ACORAB), a grantee of UN Women’s Fund
for Gender Equality. The programme delves into issues ranging from addressing
cultural malpractices faced by rural women — such as being shunned during their monthly
menstrual cycle — to women’s role in local politics and building a local motorway
which is essential for rural women traders.



In Latin America, organizations like Puntos de Encuentro in Nicaragua and Asociacion
de Comunicadores Sociales Calandria and Movimiento Manuela Ramos in Peru, provide
critical public forums  for discussions on effective ways to end violence against
women, on women’s access to justice and legal support through radio programming. Radio
projects also form an important channel of information in post-conflict Iraq and Nepal.
These initiatives are supported by the UN
Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, managed by UN Women. Established in
1996, the Fund is the only multilateral grant-making mechanism exclusively devoted
to supporting efforts to end violence against women and girls.



All these efforts have one thing in common — the power of the radio. According to
UNESCO, radio can be found in the homes of 75 percent of the world population. For
billions of people living in rural areas, or as urban poor, access to information
is limited. Disconnected from the information gateway due to poverty, low literacy,
limited electricity connections and access to communication technologies such as computers
and internet, radio is often the only medium available. Run on batteries, lightweight,
mobile and inexpensive, the popularity of the radio medium remains high, amongst the
six billion people who have access to it worldwide.



Community radio uses the power of the medium, but redefines it to give a voice to
the most marginalized communities. It creates a non-commercial platform, where ordinary
people in rural communities, often the women of the community, own and produce the
content they hear on the radio.



(Source: UN Women)

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As an integral part of the “Vive Digital Plan”, the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) is going advance in the initiatives that let more Colombians can have access to computers, digital tablets, and smart phones and thus facilitate access to ICT tools.



In Colombia, there are about 10'530.000 of these ICT tools, which corresponds about
23% of the total population. To improve these figures, we have sought an alliance
between government, operators, manufacturers and credit institutions to promote the
use of computers throughout the country.



Among the strategies developed and as support to the Vive Digital Plan, Almacenes
Éxito, Intel, UNE and HP joined to provide to the community an affordable way to buy
computer with Internet access under the program "My
First Computer“. This not only means an opportunity for social strata 1, 2 and
3; also means greater opportunities for companies to increase their sales.




Other advances that have been achieved through the combined efforts of the Ministries
of Foreign Trade and ICT, was the elimination of import taxes for the terminals with
Internet access, like for example computers, tablets and smart phones; which passed
from 5% to 0%. The measure, which took effect from first January 2012, will increase
significantly the demand for terminals in social strata 2, 3 and 4, so that, more
Colombians have access to the information highway.



"The ICT Ministry took strong measures so the technology can reach everyone, and with
this kind of work in partnership we will contribute to the reduction of gaps in knowledge
of new technologies", said ICT Minister Diego Molano Vega.



(Source: MINTIC – Colombia)

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