[UgaBYTES] telecentres| How not to keep records...

[Kiirngai Kamau]

Meddie,
These are wonderful insights to many of us promoting/incubating rural
telecentres and their sustainability. It also points to another dimension -
when dealing with cash clients, it is not sufficient to just record "Cash"
as the client name as always happens with the people who deal numbers called
accountants!

Good day.

Kiringai

-----Original Message-----
From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
[mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Meddie Mayanja
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 3:34 PM
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org; tc-mena at dgroups.idrc.ca;
fetematlc at afriklinks.org
Subject: [UgaBYTES] telecentres| How not to keep records...

Dear colleagues, 

The following is one of my blogs capturing what I have learnt on my
on-going 1 month-long travel across Africa and Europe to work with
telecentre practitioners. Sure, you can catch more of these at:
www.telecentre.org or http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/Meddie or
http://telecentreeurope.ning.com/

Here you go:.....

I arrive at Kita telecentre on a wet Tuesday morning. It is located
180 km West of Bamako, Mali. The telecentre is centrally located in
this rural but busty, little township boasting of a population of
more than 35000. We are welcomed by Abdulaye Diallo, he is the
co-owner of the telecentre. He is a highly motivated manager and
knows how to do business - my first impression.

I ask him how the telecentre is used and how many people come a day. 
I am told that users can access computer skills training,
photocopying, professional printing of any kind (with an industrial
printing machine), fax and Internet (the only place with the service
in entire region). I know, you might now be going like ".well, I know
a telecentres that does the same." Hold there! There is another spin
to this.

The most important take away here, for me, is the record keeping and
how not to do it. Abdulaye showed me a daily record of services and
fees paid - he wanted to confirm, they actually make records. Great -
I responded.  On closer look, I thought, hmm.something is clearly
missing here - who is the user, what services, how many, and where
are they were coming from. The record was pretty much inclusive. For
instance, there were six ladies on computer training and several
users came in to photocopy documents during my stay in the
telecentre. That data was not captured in any was to impact on
management. 

I quickly turned to Abdulaye and laboured to explain why I thought he
had a problem to fix. Well, he too tried to convince me all was fine.
I went graphical, - illustrated how user data can help him to
understand user trends and plan better. I also showed him various
ways he could painlessly capture user data and use it to establish a
loyal group that is happy to support his work as well as mobilising
resources from various partners.

Before too long, he stopped me midway a sentence and said. "I know
what you are talking about" rubbing his hands together as if he was
trying to control a new idea from blowing away. I leaned back on the
photocopier to catch a breath, as he added ". you see, we are very
close to the Stadium Municipal - a major regional soccer venue. For
security and space reasons, there was an initiative to demolish the
telecentre in 2004. We worked hard to convince the municipality that
this telecentre is critical to the community and should not be
demolished." I leaned forward realising something is emerging here.
He continued ".how I wish I had user data, it should have been a lot
easier to make our case"

I determined, Abdulaye had understood the importance of record
keeping more than I ever would. He had a real experience to
contextualise the whole process. The challenge, in my view, is that
most telecentre practitioners do not related record keeping to good
management. But the fact is, without records, a telecentre can not
make history or share its brand. It will struggle to live.

In yet another interesting story.

I had a chat with Mohamed (Afriklinks) yesterday - kind of trying to
digest the focus of eight telecentres that were launched early this
month by government of Algeria which provides 100% support. This
program is supported by InWent (Germany). They visited a telecentre
in Djelfa, Algeria almost 300 km from the capital. 

The catch for me, these telecentres provide certified training in
cookery and adult literacy in addition to your usual telecentre style
services. I think that is really revolutionary. This is why; if rural
communities where most telecentres are located are largely illiterate
and therefore unable to effectively use most services, how will a
telecentre helps to address that problem and therefore drive more
use? You have probably heard of telecoms and other private companies
spending time and energy to grow the market.working with young people
and investing in schools (tomorrow's market). How can a telecentre
grow its future market? Well, adult literacy training is one great
way to do just that.

The sweet part, telecentres don't have to learn how to deliver adult
literacy training. I am certain that there are thousands of
organisations - look around your country - whose job is to this
(deliver adult literacy). All a telecentre would do is to make
partnerships and avail its facilities or find the next tree shed to
convert into a class. Then mobilise the community and publicise the
program. Don't forget to brand it so you can get all the credit.

That's really about it. I have to go now.

Best, Meddie



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