[UgaBYTES] FADECO TELECENTRE INTEGRATES ICTS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Sun May 3 19:23:53 GMT 2009

Hi Joseph, 
This is an inspring development in rural Tanzania. The update on FADECO is one of the best examples of the rural telecenters. 

I trust you are doing the best on resource mobilisation and sustaining the activitties of the radio station and telecenter. We will continue to share and learn from each other. 

We congratulate your efforts and keep it up. 

Dean 

--- On Fri, 5/1/09, peter balaba <balapet2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: peter balaba <balapet2001 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] FADECO TELECENTRE INTEGRATES ICTS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Date: Friday, May 1, 2009, 12:13 PM

Thanks Joseph for this good innovation indeed that is how are true Telecentre is
supposed to serve the community and  it requires to be much creative finding 
information relevant to our communities. unfortunately in Uganda  Telephone
Company operators  have not  yet  come up with such services. I must say that
they are not minding about the farmers.

However, in Nakaseke we have decided to take the Radio to the farmers  through
a farmer to farmer recording  mostly we are working the farmers Forum ( Naads
Programme) to select model farmers on deferent enterprises  epecialy on
livestock and crop production. such experience have inspired  our farmers to put
more efforts in their farming activities.
we have also trained some farmers to record  experiences of their fellow
farmers  and then we  edit  and play back. For market information we update our
farmers on a daily basis from 5:00-6:00pm and inform the listerners on the local
and National market prices usually we get such information from the internet (
Radio Browsing ) on http://www.foodnet.cgiar.org/market/Uganda/uganda.htm

________________________________
From: Meddie Mayanja <mmayanja at idrc.ca>
To: "ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org" <ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org>
Sent: Friday, May 1, 2009 10:22:14 AM
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] FADECO TELECENTRE INTEGRATES ICTS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Thanks, Josheph

I am sharing this with my colleague at CTA. I think he might find your
community radio programming interesting especially as it relates to Agricultura
productivity.

These are some of the issues that I think ARMAC might have helped with. A
partnership with the regional bodies/institutions engaged in capacity building
programs or content development, sharing would be ideal.

Best, Meddie

________________________________________
From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org [ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org]
On Behalf Of fadeco at satconet.net [fadeco at satconet.net]
Sent: April 30, 2009 5:49 AM
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Subject: [UgaBYTES] FADECO TELECENTRE INTEGRATES ICTS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Hi Folks, allow me to share the following experiences. I have been trying to
meditate how FADECO uses the ICTs for rural development:

INFORMATION SHARING WITH FARMERS AT FADECO RADIO/ TELECENTRE:

Infrastructure in place:
- Internet connectivity via VSAT and a local wireless network
- Telephone (Mobile and Landline)
- fax
- Computer centre (limited secretarial and public access)
- Radio Station (FRC 100.8 FM)
------------------------------

FADECO Community Radio is a local radio in NW Tanzania. Its programming is
characterised with a strong focus on rural development (65%) with the rest of
the air time distributed among 25% news and general information and
entertainment (culture, history, arts) at 10%. Agriculture takes the lions share
of our programming.

The main challenges for a rural community radio are related to information/
content generation, repackaging, dissemination and feedback (monitoring to see
if the message are making any meaningful impact on the listeners). In order to
address this challenge, FRC 100.8 FM has sought to use the available ICTs both
for content generation and for getting a feed back from the farmers or
listeners. And here is how it works at FADECO:

FADECO is trying to bring Internet, mobile Phones, computers and radio to work.

a)      Information gathering/ content generation:

Farmers walk to FADECO to ask questions and report agriculture related problems
or other concerns facing them. As a one stop centre for information, the staff
at FRC 100.8 FM receive the questions, and pass them onto competent staff (who
can respond or refer the questions to other experts or identify experts who can
respond to the questions). Referrals to experts is normally done via email.
Sometime internet searches are made. Sometimes searches are made in our offline
resource base (compendia, books, cd-rom libraries).

Sometimes farmers send text messages to our office mobile number. In the past
months, FRC 100.8 FM has signed a contract with a SMS management company in Dar
es salaam and has been allocated 2 short code numbers. What the farmer does is
to use his/ her mobile phone:

Go to write new Message: Write FR.. leave one space, write a question and then
send to 15551 or Write EFR .. leave one space, write question and send to 15522.
The question is delivered directly to our computer via a web managed system. We
are therefore able to print it off, respond directly or email the question to
our experts.

The farmer receives a received note on his/ her mobile phone immediately to
confirm the message is received at FADECO.

After the question/ request is processed, we make a radio program with the
response. Unfortunately, we cannot call nor text individual farmers who send
questions.. we do not have the money. So when we have the answer, in a radio
program, we just broadcast on radio to the benefit ot the individual farmers
that asked the question and of many other farmers who may be listening.

2. Use of ICT infrastructure by journalists:

At FADECO COMMUNITY RADIO, the facility is making it possible, not only to
provide the traditional telecentres services (internet and library services) but
now in a big way, we are able to package, re-package and develop information
into radio programs that are broadcast via FADECO RADIO. This is a big
achievement.

This therefore also now underscores the involvement of journalists with FADECO
TELECENTRE. To start with, fadeco radio has teamed with a number of journalists
who provide news to the station; while at the same time, taking news to from the
station. But specifically how do the journalists use the telecentre:

(i)     Accessing news stories from the internet: Journalists use our internet
facilities to search news stories from the internet. Some of the stories are
used on our radio station.
(ii)    Also they use the internet to communicate with other journalist to send
stories or news via email. I have seen also journalists use SKYPE to communicate
and provide live reporting to their bureaus in Dar es salaam.
(iii)   One thing at FADECO TELECENTRE is the integration of the different
ICTS: we have in place VSAT for internet access, Fax, telephone services
(landline and mobile). These ICTS are used integrally for content generation
(esp. news) and for communication with others.
(iv)    Journalists come to use the telecentre to send faxes or receive faxes,
check their emails as mentioned above, but also most important, they use our
facilities for interviewing, recording, and editing. The telecdntre is laos used
as a meeting place for journalists in the area. Some of them prefer to use the
centre also for their meetings and;
(v)     One other use has been with ONLINE study. I have seen 2-4 journalists
coming to the telecentre, just because they are doing online journalist or media
studies.
(vi)    And lastly, journalists use our telecentre for secretarial purposes
like to write their stories or to print them or to photocopy documents. A few
have borrowed our recorders, after which they download content on the computers,
edit them and go away with content edited and stored on CDs.

This is a rather fragmented narration of the general benefits of FADECO RADIO/
TELECENTRE to the general public and on how we are integrating different ICTs.

Regards,

Joseph sekiku
Director
FADECO RADIO/ TELECENTRE
P. O. Box 223
Karagwe- Kagera region
NW Tanzania

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