[UgaBYTES] No good news abour registration process of BCTN : I met the Director General this morning !

[Meddie Mayanja]

Paul, hi

Thanks for sharing your challenges on this matter. This is exactly how
helpful a network of friends and practitioners can get. I know you still
have the task to review comments from Vancouver and others to determine how
to proceed.

You see, this bring back the debate on social enterprise. I don’t expect a
telecentre network, telecentre or community radio to be 100% free service
oriented. How does it sustain its operation? I recall similar discussion on
community radios in Uganda and telecentres in Nigeria.

If I met the honourable Advisor, I would explain what BCTN plans to do,
connect it to telecentres in communities and how they (telecentres) help
community access info and training services they need to be more productive.
I would urge that those telecentres need to sustain services so does the
network. Then outline a few options for resources (with their limitations)
and end like " we have to charge a little few - less than the private sector
though to sustain operations. We know that some of these costs will not be
paid directly by clients sometime but could be underwritten by people who
love what we do"

Take it this way: the Advisor need some core info to appreciate how
networks/telecentres function.

Start with that. Give him a call and set an appointment to talk. Go with
some telecentre manager from the community - its so powerful.

Best, Meddie


Meddie Mayanja
Senior Program Officer
telecentre.org, IDRC Canada
tel:  (613) 236-6163, ext 2604


-----Original Message-----
From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
[mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of NKURUNZIZA Jean
Paul
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2008 7:31 AM
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Subject: [UgaBYTES] No good news abour registration process of BCTN : I met
the Director General this morning !
Importance: High


Hello,

I met this morning the Director General of the Ministry of Interior today
morning.
The bad thing is that the Advicer in charge of our file had attached a very
little notice on our file saying that : BCTN is not a non profit
organization. He wrote this because in our text, we described some services
generally offered by telecenter ( Internet access, photocopy, Library,
community radio, ...). As he saw that offered services are not free, them he
argued that BCTN is not non profit.
But I explained that the major role of the network is essentially to support
telecenter initiatives by capacity buildings, lobbying and content for
Development, etc... as it is clearly stated in our objectives.
I also explained that low fees are paid to telecenters for their
sustainability issues.
At the end, he told me to contact back the Advicer and explain him. This
because the Director General can't go against technical advices from his
colleague.
So, we scheduled the meeting with the Advicer tomorrow as he was not in his
office today.
It looks like that we will be obliged to modify our  constitution text and
then begin all the registration process again if the Advicer doesn't
understand.

--
NKURUNZIZA Jean Paul
Président du Réseau des Télécentres Communautaires  du Burundi Secrétaire
Général de BYTC B.P 7031 BUJUMBURA BURUNDI
Tél: 00257 22 21 96 45
Tél Mob : 00257 76 60 49 46/00257 79 981 459 Fax : 00257 212485 ou 00257
222147 E.Mail : nkurunziza at bytc.bi ou
         jnkurunz at hotmail.com
Site web : http://www.bytc.bi


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