[A12n-forum] A Rwandan telecentre team visits Haryana state in India

["Don Osborn" <dzo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This item from Telecentre.org may be of interest. Note the mention of local
language training. (Pointer to this was seen on BytesforAll_readers)  Don


The Rwandan team visits a Knowledge Centre in Haryana state of India
Submitted by Emile on Sat, 2007-07-14 12:48.
http://community.telecentre.org/en-tc/node/37477

On 13th July 2007, the Rwandan group in Telecentre study tour in India
visited Drishtee .com Ltd and one of the Telecentres supported by Drishtee.
The Telecentre is located in Panipat District, Haryana state (
approximately150 Km from New Delhi). The team includes Emile MUSONERA, Eric
SESONGA from Rwanda Information Technology Authority (RITA), Paul BARERA of
Rwanda Telecentre Network and the facilitators, RUMI Mallick of CSDMS and
Mrs SHIPRA Sharma of Telecentre.org

RITA's mission is to improve the socio-economic development in Rwanda
through the use of ICTs and enhancing community access to ICT in rural
areas. We found key lessons to learn from Drishtee activities. Dristee
mission is to 'create and implemt a sustainable scalable platform of
entrepreneurship for enabling the development of rural economy and society
through the use of ICT. According to Mr NIHIN GACHHAYAT from Drishtee dot
com, the firm has 1700 knowledge centres (telecentres) around rural areas of
India. Drishtee's main objectives is to network those centres, create the
relevant content and some technical support to those knowledge centres rural
communities. These telecentres offer different services to the citizens of
souring the centre and those include government services as well.

We got an opportunity to visit one of the centres in rural Panipat. The
manager and owner of the telecentre is from the village. So far the service
offered are like Microsoft applications training in their local dialect,
digital photography. He trains 10 students in MS applications and the course
runs for 3 months. The manager is planning through Drishtee dot com to
deliver government services like issuing land certificates, birth
certificates and some more market information for the agriculture products,
health and education information. The telecentre manager has been able to
make his centre sustainable and also earn a profit every month. The good
thing is that the telecentre is owned by person from that area who knows
exactly the needs of his community. This person has the capacity to address
the community needs in a better way than any one else.

The centre has to make some profits in order to make itself sustainable. I
felt that for the sustainability of a telecentre it also has to meet the
needs of the community that the centre serves. The centre has to be
managed/owned by someone who knows their needs and how to address them and
this could only be a person from the community. Rwanda will need to identify
telecentre managers in rural areas who know the community needs and can
serve the community well, at the same time earn from the telecentres so that
he is able to sustain the telecentre.