[Telecentres] RE: [Telecentre's] Basic Telecentre Items

[Subbiah Arunachalam]

Oh! the rat traps again. In 1992 MSSRF had a dialogue on information
technology and development. Prof. Swaminathan was thinking of the optimal
ways of pressing ICTs into service in rural areas. He felt that these
technologies have come to stay and if we did not take advantage of them, we
would be pushed behind even further. After all, the developing countries of
today were once colonised by other countries which were able to take
advantage of the Industrial Revolution technologies quickly. 

Some in the audience were not sure whether a developing country needed these
new technologies, especially to bring about rural development. One of them
said, it is difficult to set up nd maintain computers in villages. He sad,
rats might chew the cables!

Coming to the list making exercise: You can add anything and everything to
such a list. What is important is to understand what a telecentre is and
what roles it can play. 

All that a telecentre does is to reach information that is relevant to a
community quickly using different technologies, both old and new.
Techonology means much more than computers and Internet. Radio, public
address system, different communication technologies, community newspapers,
and much more.

A telecentre is not set up in a vacuum. It is set up to serve PEOPLE, who
live in a CONTEXT or SETTING. They HAVE NEEDS. And they can use information
to meet those needs. Often the information is locale specific. And needs to
be in local language. 

Mere information is not enough though. We need to create livelihood
opportunities. Which brings in training, capacity building, credit, setting
up small scale enterprises, marketing, and so on. 

Development is holistic and not piecemeal. We need to look at it as a
comprehensive whole and then we will get a clear idea of what a telecentre
is and what it can do. 

And, of course, we should learn to live with the rats in peace. 

Arun
[Subbiah Arunachalam]

-----Original Message-----
From: Gopi Pradhan [mailto:gopi at apdip.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 2:12 PM
To: telecentres at wsis-cs.org
Subject: Re: [Telecentres] RE: [Telecentre's] Basic Telecentre Items




Andy and all,

On the issue of Basic Telecenter Items, let us compile the whole list at the

end.
As Don said, and I agree that the list would depend from one type of 
telecentre to another. But a long list would certainly enable us to 
visualize a typical community telecenter.
If allowed by decency, I would even add some "rat traps"?

gopi



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Cameron" <donc at internode.on.net>
To: <cnd at knowprose.com>; <telecentres at wsis-cs.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 4:23 PM
Subject: [Telecentres] RE: [Telecentre's] Basic Telecentre Items


>>> one of the things I am pursuing is that Hurricane shelters and such be
> Telecentre's, so that people are actually aware of where they are (snip).
>
> Opposite ends of the emergency spectrum Taran however I have been 
> advocating
> for many years for the use of Telecentre's as EOC's (Emergency Operations
> Centre's) for major Australian bushfires in rural and remote locations -
> There is much synergy in the roles, equipment and skills of EOC's and
> Telecentre's and sometimes duplication is unnecessary. Many of our
> Telecentre's are equipped with UHF radio on emergency operating channels,
> map and resource allocation boards, GPS equipment and other items 
> essential
> for the use of Emergency Planning or Logistics Teams - or even for the 
> vital
> function of providing communications continuity for the whole community.
>
> I think the concept of compiling a list of items required by Telecentre's
> has merit and the lists provided offer a good spread of generic items -
> although in my experience equipment and software requirements do vary
> considerably from Telecentre to Telecentre (and community to community).
>
> Rgds, Don
>
>
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