|
Karin, (again still out of synch -
sorry!)
I love the idea of a manual for lobbying and policy
advocacy re communication needs. I think that for those of us working
closely with groups and organisations struggling to get needs heard and met on
the ground, there is a real need for capacity building and supprot/
networking.
Telecentres are primarily about people - people's needs,
people's skills and people's dedication. Of course they are also about
money and political will and infrastructure. Hmmm. Anyway, I think
that there are so many different types of people needed to feed into a good
environment for telecentres, that is from the technical side, policy,
organisation and management, resource mobilisation and training etc.
Sometimes I read things about telecentres which make no sense to me, because
they are about technical side, but still doesn't mean that it is not
relevant. So, how can we work out a way where the different pieces of
the jigsaw are recognised and valued so that: a) good
collaborative partnerships are the centre of effective telecentres/ programmes -
that both meet the needs of the people in the communities where they are based
and are the best possible quality service; and b) the different areas of
capacity and training needs are recognised and catered for.
I think that this is happening to some extent anyway, but
perhaps there is a need for a group like this one to be really pinning down
where those areas are and how they link together so that the resources and
experiences already available can be shared more effecitvely? (Probably
just like somos telecentros is able to do at a regional
level?)
Hannah
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Karin Delgadillo Poepsel Sent: 06 October 2004 23:52 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [SPAM] - Re: [Telecentres] working group background, organizing principles - Email found in subject While I know that we are discussing what is a telecentre. I want to share my insights of [EMAIL PROTECTED] and the Wsis process that can contribute to clarify the role of the working group that has been created the same to give insights to Elisabeth. Sorry for my spanglish. Do not hesitate to make questions if you do not understand my spanglish. [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.tele-centros.org has been working on the sidelines of the WSIS process. By sidelines I mean that we used the spaces that has been formed specially by civil society. In fact we participated in the declaration of Ministries in Bavaro and in the prepcoms in Geneva. Carlos Afonso from RITS in Brazil has been working with the civil society closely in all the prepecoms. As a product of our second regional encounter celebrated in Quito, april 2003, we did the declaration for the prepcoms of WSIS in a consultation process with our members. The url is http://www.tele-centros.org/comunidad/encuentros/regionalII/declaracion.htm, you also can fin in the WSIS web page. This declaration it is still lying in a beautiful paper, websites and in some books that people and organizations who are involved WSIS promoted and printed. So we are still succeeding with failure in order that WSIS take in consideration some of the needs of [EMAIL PROTECTED] network and I am still looking that the energy that we invested in this process will attend the needs of our constituencies. However we used this process to develop a strategy inside of [EMAIL PROTECTED] on how the practitioners of [EMAIL PROTECTED] could influence in policies and regulations and do lobby. It has been a extremely hard experience for the practitioners of [EMAIL PROTECTED] network, becauser se realize that we need training. That is why we worked hardly in developing the first online and face to face training workshops on policies, regulations and advocacy of telecentres, concentrating very much on supporting the profile of practitioners of telecentres in the national chapters of [EMAIL PROTECTED] network for lobbying and advocacy. So in this way will be these leaders who will advocate the needs of the telecentres practitioners and thier communties. They will do the link from the ground level to the national, regional and global level. So practitioners can be trained and be in the places were the decisions are taking place in the national and regional level. It is very important to define a regional agenda and participate in spaces like WSIS in order to advocate their needs. Please see the summary of this process in http://www.tele-centros.org/politicas/cursopoliticasonline.htm A book and a cd is going to be printed very soon, manual for practitioners of telecentres for lobbying and advocacy of polices and regulations to advocate the needs of the communities that are using telecentres will be launch at the end of this month. This process has been supported by IDRC and ICA. We are still working hard in the training process of the practitioners of telecentres to advocate, lobby and influence in policies and regulations for telecentres. The second phase of this process is to consolidate a regional team of influencing in policies and regulations of [EMAIL PROTECTED] based on the national agendas of the telecentres. We are still still search for support to strength this process. One of my biggest concerns in the creation of this list and defining a work group is that it still exist a gap of those who are in the international scenarios such as in WSIS and the real communities and practitioners of telecentres who are in the ground facing challenges to survive. It is not linked the process of wsis with the real needs and demands that practitioners of telecentres and their communities are facing. It exist of course intermediaries that interpret their needs but the real appropriation and mechanism of communication are not in place. So it would be a role and responsibility of this group to find mechanisms to express the voice of those who are directly on the ground. In what way WSIS can be a platform to advocate their needs and find strategies to full fill their demands by establish methods and mechanisms from the ground level to the global level? Elisabeth would be great if you incorporate in the workgroup that you are suggesting, how it should be address this challenge?. I am thinking loudly in order to find common understanding of what are the real issues that as telecentres should advocate based on the needs of its constituencies and use the scenarios as WSIS or others in order to advocate their needs and influence in policies. I am a person that instead of doing new things we should use the spaces that has been already created, make bridges in order to have a better influence and brake the isolation, use the capacities of organizations that are already working in this issues and define mechanisms to have a stronger impact. I strongly belief on networks so I would suggest to focus on the challenges of the past, our failures in this process and find a common strategy based on the needs of our constituencies so mechanisms are in place as well. . I would love to know what has been the experience of practitioners of telecentres and networks that has bee participating in the WSIS process. How are linking the needs of their constituencies and what process was set up in place in order to have a better impact. This are my five cents. Karin Board Member [EMAIL PROTECTED] Latin American and the Caribbean community base telecentre Network www.tele-centros.org Michael Gurstein wrote: Andy and all, The Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN) with which a number of those on this list are affiliated will be meeting f2f next week in Prato, Italy. One of the topics of discussion will be a possible role for CIRN in WSIS (while CIRN is not directly registered as a Civil Society group within the WSIS context, several national representative and other formally registered CS organizations are active participants in CIRN and will be represented at the Prato meeting). CIRN as a network of researchers and practitioner/researchers concerned with enabling communities with Information and Communications Technologies has a very strong and active interest in supporting the development of Telecentres as points of community internet access. I should mention as well though, that our interest goes beyond simple access through Telecentres to working with communities to make effective use of this access in support of locally based development including for health, local economic and social development, environmental management and others. I'm sure CIRN's on-going relationship with this Network will be an element in our discussions and I would guess that our conclusion would be to actively support this initiative in whatever manner seems to be most useful and generally productive. As to a preferred organizational structure for this working group, there seems no particular reason at this point to move towards a formalized structure (but perhaps I'm wrong) and that it might be more useful for the group to get to know each other a bit better first and also to further explore the issues of concern to determine what the appropriate nature of the "representativeness" for this group should be. Best, Mike Gurstein (Interim) Chair: CIRN http://www.ciresearcher.net -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Andy Carvin Sent: September 24, 2004 12:51 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Telecentres] working group background, organizing principles Stuart Mathison wrote: >> - My suggestion is that we advocate on the two previous questions. An issue, >> however, is the mechanics through which the collective voice of this working >> group can make itself heard. Are we "official"? Can we be registered as a >> civil society entity? How do we appoint people to represent the group? >> In the simplest terms, yes, we are already "official." When the UN decided to host the WSIS meetings, it was agreed that civil society organizations could become accredited delegates, along with governments, UN agencies, international donors, etc. This meant that civil society organizations would have a voice in the deliberations, though not a vote. Prior to the first WSIS meeting in Geneva, civil society organizations began to organize, setting up caucuses and working groups on a variety of issues, such as human rights, gender, education, youth; there were also groups set up by region (Latin American family, North American family, etc). Participation in these working groups is voluntary, with each working group existing because there was critical mass of volunteers to work in that area. Civil society also created a plenary email list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) for all working group members to join, as well as a civil society bureau comprised of representatives from each working group to represent civil society's interests when it comes to logistical planning for each summit and prepcom, etc. This June, at the CTCNet conference in Seattle, I co-hosted a meeting of the North American group. During the meeting we discussed civil society's wsis activities, and the role telecenter activists were playing in the process. Some of us noted how the telecenter movement could fall through the cracks because its interests were spread out amongst various other working groups. So I proposed the idea of organizing a new civil society working group for telecenters. Following recommendations of members of the civil society bureau, I proposed the idea on the CS plenary list, and proposed it during CS plenary meetings in Tunisia at the most recent Prepcom meeting. Participants were supportive of the idea, and there were no objections, so I was encouraged to found the new working group. The bureau then created the email discussion group for us on the official WSIS civil society server (www.wsis-cs.org) in late August, which brings us to where we are now. So to summarize: our group is an official civil society working group, and we can offer input to the civil society plenary and participate in other civil society activities. I'm the one who proposed and founded the group, and so far I'm facilitating the group. If the group would like to be more formal, we could have a discussion about who is serving as chairperson, or "focal point," to use the civil society bureau terminology. I'm perfectly happy to serve in this role, but would not want to force myself upon the group either simply because I came up with the idea. Most other groups have a sole focal point serving as chairperson, but others have co-chairs, or a chairperson and a couple of vice chairs. Personally, I think this is a good idea, since it would allow for some geographic diversity. So I suppose we have three models to consider: 1. One person (I or someone else) could serve as sole focal point (chairperson) for the working group. 2. Two people - perhaps one from the North, one from the South - could serve as co-chairs. 3. One person as focal point, with multiple people (two or three others) as vice chairs. So I'd like to propose we discuss this. Does anyone have any strong feelings as to how the group's leadership shall be organized? And are there nominations for people to play any of these roles? As I said, I'm perfectly happy to do this myself, but think it would be good to share some of the responsibility with one or more people representing other parts of the world, particularly the South.... ac -------------------------------------- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media & Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org http://www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog/ -------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ telecentres mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/telecentres To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ telecentres mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/telecentres To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. |
_______________________________________________ telecentres mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/telecentres To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
