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

[Karin Delgadillo Poepsel]

Hi Don, Thanks for your message. I do agree with you and your approach because that is responding to the dynamic of Australia and the system in place there. Reading your mail, make me realize that we are fractals of the system and that means that we live in a systemic society. Communities responds to the structure of that society that are in place  and their rules. In Ecuador we have grassroots communities, indigenous cofanes communities as an example, as well as slum areas that are organized as a community, street children and other type of communities as you explain when people gather and meet because they have a need or interest. In this context telecentres plays a role. telecentres, people and community can not been seen isolated and we need to see in  a holistic way. In your  experience remote telecentres is the community. In my experience as well, community or communal houses are the meeting point and the telecentre plays a role in it, normaly people do not call telecentre. They call "jambi huasi" or casa communal,  I mean it reflects  their cultural background and reality. I do agree with your concept we are the telecentre not the telecentre is there, that is why in this concept of communal house or jambi huasi, computer, loud speaker, mural newspaper or just the assembly are tools that attends the needs of that community. You call telecentre, i do call also telecentre in the international scenario but I do not call telecentre in the local escenario, people call as they feel responds to their cultural reality. The importance is to highlight the concept of a  telecentre responding to the dynamics of a community and how digital technologies among others could respond to the needs of that community. We described a telecentre as: Community telecentres are powerful tool for supporting community development through the use of digital technologies linked to their own ways of communication. Community telecentres represents and experiment in using digital technologies as tools for human development within a community. The stress here is on the social use and appropriation of technological tools  and communication tools that responds to the needs and demands of the community . Community telecentres are places for social encounter and interaction, for learning, for personal growth and for mobilizing efforts to address community problems and needs. But the telecentres do not only respond to the communication and information needs of the community. Instead, they are also an instrument for measuring the impact telecomnunication tools have in advancing social equity and economic development at the grassroots. In remote and impoverished groups in Ecuador and Latin American, people are thinking how I am going to survive, not I need computers or a telecentre. 70 percent of the population lives under the line of poverty, so their needs are focused on how I am going to eat and the community house is the center or focal point to gather meet and plan.  A telecentre emerge in this concept because internet could be a tool to attend such demands linked to their own ways of communication if they got connectivity if they do not got connectivity they find ways on how digital technologies can be used . Let me explain  or describe a story so people understand better what I mean specially in the concept that are not the telecentre it is the dynamic. Apparently this is story is negative but it is not. Sorry for the  lenght of the message. PASTOCALLE: MATANGA AND PUCARA INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY CATALYSING LIFE-ALTERING CHANGES   This very special story began in February 1998  and continues until today. In sharing it, I will not mention names because of the sensitive nature of what is currently going on in the community and because the women in these indigenous communities requested me to protect their privacy.   Pastocalle, a town in the Andean highlands, is located 3.100 meters above sea level. The population is made up of indigenous people and mestizos; most are small farmers. The community decided at one point that they had to have a computer. In order to buy one, they sold many of their guinea pigs and other animals. Having finally acquired a computer, they installed it in their community house. Chasquinet helped connect Pastocalle through the telecentre, which was used by the farmers to their advantage when their potato crops were hit by a strange plague of ants. (But I am getting ahead of the story)   The farmers, at their wits’ en on how to save their crops, decided to make not one but several costly trips to Quito to try to secure help from the Ministry of Agriculture. The government was, after all, supposed to help the people. But the visits to the Ministry office produced nothing for the farmers. Just as when the farmers were about to give up, the farmers met Chasquinet which put them in touch with other farmers organisations who could help them. And help the farmers of Pastocalle got. Plenty in fact. Eventually, thorough the help of other farmer organisations and by accessing information through the Internet, the farmers of Pastocalle were able to solve the problem.   But there’s more.   To get the community to learn how to run and use the telecentre, Chasquinet conducted a series of training with the people. The women were most active in the entire exercise. They were mostly concerned about protecting the ecosystem of the community. And it was most natural for them to mount a campaign to declare the zone between Matanga a Pucara an ecological reserve thereby preventing the sale of the land to a Dutch company that wanted to build a hotel in the area. From strategising and running the campaign, it was the women who took the driver’s seat, so to speak.  Using the internet and local Ecuadorian media, the women of Pastocalle received a lot of support for their advocacy.   The experiences of the women encouraged the local community to get interested how to harness the tools of the Internet for their various goals. The young people, for example, decided they wanted to create webpages to promote ecotourism. The women also started ways to use the Internet to promote their clothing micro-enterprise by streamlining administration and marketing. So the whole community began learning about the other worlds beyond the Andean highlands. What could be the better way of ending this story?   Except that this is not yet the end.   One day, a group of girls approached  me with a bit of gossip. The boys, they said in the hushed tones, were using the Internet to access pornographic sites. I caught myself just in time before I blurted out to agree with them that the boys were wrong. Instead, I asked the girls about what they felt aout the situation and why they thought it was wrong for the boys to be ogling at naked women in the Internet.   What was revealed to me afterwards triggered the discovery of a very serious problem in the community –one that is not easy to confront and address. I found out that most of the furs ad been raped by an uncle or some other male relative. Concerned for the girls, I brought out the information with the community women. I soon realised that the women’s sufferings ran long and deep. Many of them had also been raped by their male relatives.   I began to use the internet to look for support and healing, because unfortunately no one here in Ecuador except the elite has access to this type of emotional help and therapy. Meanwhile, the internet training sessions with the girls and women continued; but most often than not, these sessions became a venue for the women to  open up about their experiences of domestic abuse and their husband’s alcoholism. The sessions became a forum for mutual support and solidarity. An energy of caring was created and fostered and practices of solidarity began to develop. The women quickly transformed the telecentre into a space of their own where they could collectively support and heal each other.   Meanwhile, the men became uneasy and annoyed. By then, we had decided to prioritise the women’s training course, which I now think was a mistake. The men felt envious of the attention the women were getting. They became increasingly bothered by the courses’s strong emphasis on harnessing self-esteem.   Until one day, a woman whom I will call Rosita, arrived at our training session with a black eye and blood on her cheek. In between sobs, Rosita’s story  of long-standing abuse and humiliation in the hands of her husband poured out. I felt then that it was important for Rosita to cry and share what had happened to her with the group which diminished her feelings of isolation.   A week after, Rosita returned to the telecentre, beaming. For the first time in her life, she told us, she stood up to her husband. She defended herself, and more than that, she hit back at her husband using  a stick to deliver the message that she will no longer cower in fear. Rosita was triumphant and it showed.   Not soon after disaster struck. The community’s leadership changed hands and two days after Rosita’s brave confrontation with  her husband, the community’s new directors closed down the telecentre. Cries of protest form the women, young people, and children fell on deaf ears.   I have often asked myself, what lessons have we learned form this experience?. Chasquinet never earned a penny from its work with  the Pastocalle. Our relationship with the community was based on exchange –they give us sacks of corn in return of our work with them. But after working for years with this community, we got much more than the sacks of corn in the fair exchange. We were made richer by the invaluable lessons we learned from the many brave women in the community.   In my view, the telecentre and the Internet when they were integrated into the community became tools for aiding community development. They also served as instruments to unearth deeper community problems, those that festered and were kept hidden like rape and incest. However, these tools are not in themselves the forces that finally altered the relations of power within the community. The power to transform the relations in the community comes from the women’s new-found strength, their realisation that it is alright to demand changes for their betterment, and the discovery of their voices by which to assert themselves.   In the face of such changes, the men felt vulnerable. Blaming outsiders proved the easiest way for them to cope with the new situation. Chasquinet was after all the one conducting the trainings, and it was after sessions began that the problems with the women also started. Ego, Chasquinet must be teaching the women “bad things”.   The telecentre remains closed and the community directors refuse to re open it or give any information about their plans for it. Despite this, the women of Pastocalle travel once a month to Quito to meet in Chasquinet’s office and to use the computers there.   A major change has indeed taken place in their lives. Hope this illustrates better what I am trying to explain. It is always difficult to explain in workds and in english :-) All the best, Karin

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