[UgaBYTES] Taking ICT to rural communities]

[Senfuka Samuel]

Dear members,

Read below an article in todays's Daily Monitor News paper about the role
of ICTs and business. CEEWA-Uganda is proud to be a partner to CMCs that
link the communities to Community Mulltimedia Centres as evidenced by Ms
Nabanja Lovicer a CEEWA-Uganda ICT Project beneficary and Community Based
Trainer, Nabweru site. The project has over 220 beneficiaries in this
community accessing the Centre services.

However, there are still key challenges CMCs are facing Nabweru inclusive.
The major one is sustainability (capacity/skills and financial),Political
influence where they end up as secretarial rooms for civil servants and
politicians I guess you know where most of these centres are located
(Subcounty headquarters-"Gombolola")No pay for services enjoyed.

We need to rethink about the design of these centres.

Best regards,

Daily Monitor, Features | August 8, 2007

Taking ICT to rural communities:
BAMUTURAKI MUSINGUZI

As she browses the Internet at the Nabweru Community Multimedia Centre
(CMC) computer lab, Lovincer Nabanja recounts how the facility has enabled
her to acquire computer and business skills leading to better management
of her restaurant. "The centre greatly helped and now I can use it to run
my restaurant and outside catering service," Nabanja pauses to tell me.
"With the Internet, I learn new ideas on the day to day operations of my
business, customer care and log onto the foodnet.com to know the current
prices of fresh food items for the restaurant, besides savings skills,"
the 46-year-old single mother said.

BENEFICIARY: Lovincer Nabanja has Nabweru Telecentre to thank for enabling
her acquire skills that have allowed her to expand her business and take
her
children through school. Photo by Morgan Mbabazi "I used to spend a lot to
transport the daily supplies needed at the restaurant but now I just use
my mobile phone to call and they are delivered," she says. Nabanja whose
success has seen her expand her business by opening an outside catering
service for all kinds of parties has managed to see her three children
through tertiary education as a result of her hard work. "Before I joined
the centre in 2002 as an adult leaner, my children had almost failed to
complete university education because I did not have enough money for
tuition. Through Nabweru CMC, I have had them finish and I am now paying
school fees for my grandchildren. I used to make a daily profit of
Shs5,000 ($2.8) per day compared to Shs25,000 ($14) that I earn today of
which I save Shs10,000 ($5.7) on my account in Allied Bank," Nabanja
revealed. Suleiman Senyonga, another beneficiary of the centre and owner
of Senyonga, Sendegeya and Sons Metal Works says the centre has enabled
him to acquire computer and business management skills and making
friendships over the Internet with metal workers across the globe with
whom he shares business ideas. Seated in his office in the busy Jua Kali
section of Katwe, a Kampala suburb, Senyonga said: "The centre has helped
me in various ways. There is a time I thought I was independent and self
reliant, but when I joined the centre in 1999, I learnt that two heads are
better than one. If we can work together and collaborate with our
counterparts with better technology in South Africa and India, we shall
realize development."

Promoting development:
It's at the centre that Senyoga developed the idea of forming the Katwe
Small Scale Industrial Development Association (KASSID) in 2005 to bring
all the Jua Kali artisans together. KASSID now boosts of 230 members. "We
all need each other for an integrated business strategy," Senyoga said. He
says he still uses the facilities at the centre to receive fax messages
and
typeset documents related to his metal fabrication business.

His sales have gone up as a result of learning new business ideas. "Before
I joined, I made a profit of Shs1 m ($571) every six months and now I take
home Shs5 m ($2,857) every six months. My clients are mainly individuals
who buy my fabricated windows, doors, gates, brick making machines, fences
and many others," he revealed.

Nabanja and Senyonga are among several of the Nabweru CMC beneficiaries
that have acquired Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
knowledge on improved farming techniques, child rights, entrepreneurship
skills, and computer training, and indicated that they have been able to
put this knowledge and skills to use which has greatly improved their
performance.

Education in the targeted areas has been positively impacted with evidence
of better performances in schools. Reference materials for teachers are
more
readily available and more teachers and students can access the centres
for research purposes. Some resource centres have triggered a reading
culture
especially among the young and school going youth.

Students now use the centres as a reading place as well as a meeting
point. The library services are normally offered free of charge. Parents
have taken
the initiative to register with the resource centres to personally borrow
books for their children. On the political scene, all CMCs have aroused
several reactions in the community.

"Communities that were apolitical have now picked up interest in the
governance and management of their areas and resources.

Women have evidently been influenced into taking up more active roles in
the management of their communities with several reports of the women
taking
up local council positions - which was previously unheard of," an
Evaluation and Impact Assessment Study on the pilot project for the
establishment of the National Network of CMCs in Uganda carried out
between
December 2005 and January 2006 observed.

It's now evident that teachers, students and community members have more
access to information moreover cheaply. "Most users were satisfied with
the
information they received from the CMCs and felt that it was appropriate
for their needs," the study adds.

The availability of secretarial services at the CMCs has aided and
improved working conditions in several nearby institutions. The centres
established in their localities have checked the costs of travelling
longer
distances. Several other copycat business services have also been started;
the demand however is still high and can accommodate all the new comers
comfortably.

According the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), Communications
Sector Comparative Figures for the period December 1996 to December 2006,
there were only 17 Internet Service Providers by September 2006.

There were only 129,863-fixed phone lines compared to 2,697,616 mobile
cellular subscribers by December 2006 while Internet or email subscribers
stood at 8,000 in September 2004.

A survey by UCC conducted on Internet development in Uganda carried out in
the districts of Jinja, Kampala, Lira, Mbale and Mbarara in October 2005,
showed that 97.7 percent of the respondents who use the Internet have
benefited from the technology.

Most of the respondents from education institutions said they use the
Internet for research. For others, the Internet is popular for games and
accessing personal e-mails. As far as attitude towards the cost
of using the Internet is concerned, 63.7 percent are not satisfied with
what they are paying their service providers for their Internet connection
and most of these feel it's expensive.

On access habits, the survey found out that 46 percent of the respondents
use the Internet daily, 42 percent once a month and 11 percent never. It
was also disclosed that most people access the Internet through Internet
cafes (80 percent). Other sources are home connection (8 percent), a
friend's place ( 6.4 percent) and hotspots (5.7 percent).

On the public perception of services offered by ISPs, 41 percent of the
respondents felt the link was slow, expensive and not reliable,
characterised by frequent breakdown and poor connections. Other complaints
were lots of junk mail, password problems and narrow bandwidth hindering
transfer of large data files.

The Nabweru CMC located at Nabweru sub-county headquarters, Kasangati in
Wakiso District is about 10 Kilometres from Kampala. As a non-profit
organisation, it was implemented by the Uganda National Commission
for Unesco with financial aid from the Belgian government in collaboration
with the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC) to
empower rural community members through use and application of ICTs.
Linking tool The CMC project, a component of the African Information
Society Initiative (AISI) and the UN System Wide Special Initiative on
Africa was piloted in six Uganda districts; Nakaseke, Wakiso, Mpigi,
Kabale, Kibaale and Apac. AISI is an action framework that has been the
basis for information and communication activities in Africa since 1996.
It is not about technology. It is about giving Africans the means to
improve the quality of their lives and fight against poverty.

The CMCs are regularly turned into virtual offices. The CMC does not only
aim to facilitate access to useful activities such as job-hunting or
checking the price of agricultural goods in town, it also seeks to
encourage the creation of locally relevant content. The development of a
community's own resources, particularly data banks, audio and video
archives, posters, brochures and CD-ROMs, are also part of the CMC's
mission.

In the most remote regions, users of ICTs connect with the rest of the
world through CMCs. This Unesco programme, which seeks to bridge the
digital divide, gives the most destitute and isolated communities in
the developing world access to ICTs.

At present, 30 CMCs are operating in 16 countries spread out over three
continents of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. The CMCs integrate community
radio stations with the infrastructure of community telecentres, for
example computers linked to the Internet, printers, faxes, photocopying
machines, photo equipment, scanners among others.

Illiterate people also come to the CMCs where instructors help them browse
the web. The monitors write e-mails and also read back the answers. As for
semi-literate people, they learn to spot certain reference points as they
browse. "Though the digital divide is far from being bridged, the CMCs
prove that when people have access to ICT, they know exactly how to
benefit from it, adapting it to their own needs," Unesco observes.

Nabweru has a telecentre component that provides a range of services such
as computer training, email and internet, scanning, photocopying, library,
typesetting, video recording, local content that address community
information needs among others. It also operates a community radio
(Nabweru 102.5 Tiger FM) that is used to disseminate both local and
international content to community members in their local languages.

Besides phone-ins, emails and letter writing, community participation is
also encouraged through community involvement in programming and
production.
The objectives of the radio include developing an economically
sustainable, community owned and managed centre that provides information
and communication services by combining new and traditional technologies.

Complementary technologies, such as radio and the Internet, set the CMCs
apart from traditional communications projects. "The CMC is an integrated
association of technologies, of which the Internet is a component. The
radio is a means to broadcast information in the local language to the
heart of communities. 'Radio-browsing' helps to bridge the generation gap,
because parents can become familiar with the Internet and not feel out of
place when their children talk about downloading documents, for
instance," according to Unesco.

-- 
Senfuka Samuel
Program Officer
CEEWA-Uganda
P.O.Box 9063
Kampala-Uganda
Tel:+256-41-269507/477
Fax:+256-41-269469
Email:samuel.senfuka at ceewauganda.org
Website:www.ceewauganda.org