Marrying Traditional and Modern Communication Technologies
for Development
Email messages coming out of the Indian subcontinent in the last year or
two have spoken of initiatives combining traditional and modern
communication technologies for reaching people in rural areas. This
concept has been described as having a beneficial impact with respect to
the development of people in those areas. Those are the words. Converting
those words, that one can understand with the mind, into images that not
only stimulate the mind but also the heart is sometimes difficult without
actually seeing the concept in action.
Last January, I was fortunate enough to participate in a UNESCO sponsored
workshop on the subject of combining traditional and modern communication
technologies for development. The workshop was held at place called
Kothmale in Sri Lanka where the other participants and I were able to
experience first hand the concept in action. I would like to describe the
initiative.
Kothmale is a region in the very centre of the island of Sri Lanka. It is
a region that comprises a number of rural communities spread over a wide
area. A mountain rises out of the jungle in Kothmale, on the slopes of
which is a conference centre which uses the buildings and houses left over
from a Swedish aid initiative that built a number of hydroelectric dams on
the Mahaweli River some years ago.
In approximately 1988, before the conference centre was created in these
buildings, UNESCO funded the establishment of an FM community radio
station on the highest part of the mountain. From that vantage point, the
radio beams its relatively low power radio signal to some 52 communities
in the valleys below. The average population of the communities is in the
order of perhaps 1500 or so.
The radio station staff has designed an initiative they call Radio Browsing.
With the help of UNESCO, the station acquired three computers equipped
with Internet access. Australia provided the services of a young volunteer
versed in the use of computers and the Internet for a period of 18 months
to train the station personnel, as well as interested students from
schools in the surrounding villages. There was no shortage of eager young
students to be trained. The purpose of Radio Browsing is to bring the
benefits of the information age to the people in the 52
surrounding villages even though they do not themselves have access to the
Internet, or computers for that matter. It works as follows:
The radio station has a broadcasting schedule that includes a one hour
program each day of the 5-day work week on a particular theme, for example
Mondays the theme is health; Tuesdays may be nutrition; Wednesdays,
learning English; Thursdays, culture (the programs have elements in both
Tamil and Singhhalese); Fridays is yet another theme.
Taking Mondays as an example, for which the theme is health - the health
subject within the health theme for a particular Monday's one-hour program
may be HIV/AIDS; for the following Monday it may be living for a healthy heart,
and so on. Students who come to the radio station are tasked with
searching the Web for material on HIV/AIDS for example. The station staff
turn the raw information into an hour program.
During the programs, listeners' questions are invited. After each program,
Villagers send their questions to the station by regular mail. During the
week following a program, students are again asked to search the Web, this
time for answers to the questions received, which are provided on air at
the end of the following week's health theme program.
Why the name Radio Browsing? Because, in effect, the villagers are browsing
the Web by proxy and getting their information via the community radio.
Not quite as good as having your own computer, which in the circumstances
is not even thinkable for many years to some, but it is far better than not
having access at all.
Some interesting elements of the Kothmale initiative:
- Issues of health, nutrition and basic education are addressed. Such a
concept could be very useful in disseminating knowledge to rural people on
the issue of HIV/AIDS, for example,
- Youths are significantly involved in the world of information
technology and community action in this concept,
- There are openings for young women in this field as was demonstrated
in the community library of nearby Gampola where a young woman is in charge
of the Internet access facility. The Kothmale community radio station,
acting as a mini-Internet service provider, provides this service to a
library in each of the nearby communities of Gampola and Nawalapitiya.
Radio Browsing is a concept that can be very useful in programming for
development. The concept applies specifically to the millions of relatively
unconnected poor who are very likely to be left behind by the information
society, unless imaginative measures are taken. Radio Browsing is an
imaginative mean sure developed by developing countries themselves.
Many developing countries are already fairly well equipped with community
radio installations which can reach many, many people in isolated rural
areas. It is suggested that advantage can be taken of the relatively low
cost involved in bringing Radio Browsing capability to community radio
stations. Appropriate programming could bring results that would be fully
in line with social development agendas, as well as being supportive of
programming activities in general, in developing countries.
Gerard Kenney
CIDA
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