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

[Elizabeth Carll, PhD]

Don and all,   Disaster management and preparation is obviously a useful service that can be provided via telecenters as shown by the excellent example you posted.  As a specialist in the psychological aspects and effects of crisis and disaster, I have long advocated for the use of media/ICT to help communities cope in the after math of disasters, as an effective method of reaching large segments of the population. Telecenters can be especially useful in providing disaster preparation and crisis intervention/management services in rural and remote areas.   Elizabeth Dr. Elizabeth Carll Focal Point International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies; Chair Media/ICT Working Group, NGO Committee on Mental Health, New York Tel: 1-631-754-2424 Fax: 1-631-754-5032 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Don Cameron Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2004 10:10 AM To: 'Toby Beresford' Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Telecentres] RE: [Telecentre's] Basic Telecentre Items >> What do your communities mean by "Lighthouse Centre" - what rocks is it warning people away from? Or is it that this is the place where the light of the internet can be found?   Toby this is a very interesting question… A Lighthouse can be a beacon or a warning, or both. Accepted usage in the context of a community gathering is a beacon designed to attract people to the community of a Telecentre, I don’t think the Internet has a lot to do with it. However having made this observation, many in our indigenous communities do view the Internet with natural trepidation and will caution youth in particular from becoming too involved with a medium offering very little in the way of indigenous values and learning. Perhaps the Lighthouse serves as both a beacon and a warning.   I would like to expand this idea further to a current priority of some of the Telecentre’s in my home State of NSW as well as in QLD Australia. NSW is facing an imminent (within days or a few weeks at the most), plague of locusts of proportions not previously seen in recorded history. Drought combined with global warming produced a plague last year and the continued drought conditions has resulted in hatchings of billions of these insects over the past few weeks – only yesterday I travelled to a remote area of our region to establish a macro link suitable for field data and video transfers for one of our local environmental scientists. To see millions of these tiny creatures in a single square metre of ground (in an area of thousands of hectares of similar terrain) was really quite terrifying. They are yet unformed with wings however it is only a matter of days before they begin to swarm and reap havoc on our crops, pastures and livelihoods. Amongst the organizations at the fore of the battle to mitigate the impact of these creatures are our Telecentre’s, all of which locally are providing free access to Government and other resources combined in a single effort to reduce the swarms and resultant damage. In this instance our Telecentre’s are very much operating as a Lighthouse, warning residents and providing vital information to the unwary or unprepared landholder.     The State of QLD is currently in the grip of an early wildfire season and Telecentre’s are similarly at the fore of providing essential community warning information. Most Telecentre’s in affected areas are compiling fire danger alerts, providing free access to evacuation information, fire losses of homes and other property, bureau of meteorology forecasts, traffic delays etc. etc. in a coordinated effort to inform and as necessary to warn people of imminent danger. These Telecentre’s are also operating as a Lighthouse for the very rough “waters and rocks” of uncontrolled wildfires.   These scenarios are continually played-out right across our continental landmass – from remote Telecentre’s in the West and North-West of Western Australia engaged in Cyclone warning and support, to Telecentre’s in the ‘Red Centre’ providing drought and travel warnings for people silly enough to try and cross a desert unprepared. Maybe a “Lighthouse” is a very apt descriptor for the warning value offered by many of these Telecentre’s.       Rgds, Don

_______________________________________________
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.