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Dear All Some methodological notices to the
telecentre concept. In Hungary for ten years of our telecentre (telecottage)
movement we couldn’t exactly define, what is a telecentre/telecottage (we
see there is no two totally similar among our telecottages),
although we have them close to 600. It isn’t a problem, doesn’t make
any confusion in our work. But we have a so called „telecottage minimum”.
The minimum requirements for using the protected name of „telehaz”
(telehouse) by any service organisation. This list of requirements should serve
as baseline for telecottage quality assurance, which is not introduced yet in
Hungary. So, when searching the definition (or basic characteristics) of the
service organisation called telecentre, I suggest to make difference between
basic features (telecentre minimum) and additional ones. All this
characteristics (basic and additional) should be anderstood as so called „adaptation
points”, because in different situations of telecentre countries, the content,
measures can be different (like broadband, number of workstations related to
the local population, etc.). Matyas Gaspar -----Original
Message- Hi Karin, Thank you for highlighting just how much
diversity we have in our movement and fantastic to read of your grass-root
efforts to engage Telecentre practitioners in the process of WSIS. I
congratulate you on endeavours to promote advocacy, participation and
education, and look forward to any ideas that help intermediaries express the
realities of life facing Telecentre practitioners. A difficulty I have in providing input into
this question of “What is a Telecentre” is exactly as you suggest;
there is no single model. Your post also leads to awareness that my input to
date might be construed as suggesting that all Australian Telecentre’s
are funded and fundamentally the same. As you rightly suggest they are not and
my apologies if I gave this impression. Many of our Telecentre’s are
located in comparatively affluent towns and communities and received start-up
funds from Government. A great many others are located in impoverished remote
indigenous towns and villages working with the very poor and illiterate. Like
your example, many of these remote “Telecentre’s” (usually
not named as such) do not have computers or telephones other than perhaps a
single donated satellite phone and exist with no Government support whatsoever.
The reason they lack this support is because they were ineligible for funds
lacking as they do in capacity to prove a potential for financial
sustainability to Govt grant providers. This was identified by many
practitioners as one of the fundamental flaws of our early grant processes
– the fact recipients had to prove a capacity for sustainability before
any funds would be provided. Those who could not prove this capacity did not
receive any support. Yet there is a commonality of purpose of
all these Telecentre’s – All Telecentre’s work as part of our
communities for community gain. I don’t distinguish the efforts of a
Telecentre working with the very poor and illiterate as fundamentally any
different to a Telecentre working for a more affluent community yet dealing with
issues of youth suicide, drug abuse and local economic decline. All are
challenges worthy of our efforts and attention. One aspect we are yet to touch
on is the number of Telecentre’s working to mitigate social decline
brought about through the very introduction of ICT’s – Community
Telecentre’s smart enough to realise how ICT’s are a double edged
sword offering gain as well as loss, and developing strategies to mitigate the
downside of community ICT’s (perhaps another topic for another day). I’m not sure I completely agree that
all Telecentre’s are just “tools for community” because in
many remote communities the Telecentre is the community. These are the type of
Telecentre where the facility is often someone’s home; where all the
planning, management and resources are provided by the community; where
gatherings are the community coming together for a common purpose. A tool
describes a device or instrument; community describes a group of people
associated by interest or purpose. In my experience of remote
Telecentre’s the term usually describes the people more than the tools or
technology – i.e. “We are the Telecentre”; not “Here is
the Telecentre”. I’m not sure I have properly expressed this
culture so I hope my words make sense. Rgds, Don |
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