BRIDGING THE DIGITAL GAP
Location
We organise computer/ICT community education/training
workshops/seminars, to educate/train girls/youths, women/community and underprivileged/disables, on how to use computer/ICT equipments to study/understand/share knowledge on community/world controversial issues.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Field of Work
Please select one
If Field of Work is “other” please define in 1-2 words below
EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT,HEALTH, SOCIAL J
Year project started (or projected start date) (yyyy)
2006
YouTube Upload
Project URL (or link to any media coverage)
http://UNDER CONSTRUCTION
What is the primary problem your venture is trying to address and how are you addressing it (or planning to address it)?
This field has not been completed. (200 words or less)
In Cameroon, Africa, Middle East, Formal Russian Satellite States, Asia, some parts of Latten America etc, the digital gap difference between the privileged and the underprivileged is very wide.
For even the under privileged who have the means to make use of the digital systems of the radio/TV, fix/cell phones, fax and internet, lack the knowledge/training, to manipulate the system with greatest information (i.e. computer/internet with limited or no censorship compared to radios/TV censorship by our African leaders, to maintain them selves in power by marginalising the masses, for their personal aggrandisement), so as to access it.
The case of Cameroon is deteriorating/pathetic because of poverty/ignorance and marginalization of the masses, which is holding them hostage to go for the much needed knowledge to connect them with their relatives, community and the world.
How can we disseminate the much needed information to the masses/”poor”? Which ICT system(s) can deliver our goals/objectives to the required target population? These questions and more is what this project is answering concerning our activities in the community.
The sum total of Information Communication Technology (ICT) Plus Information Dissemination (ID), should be equal to Sustainable Conservational Development, i.e. ICT +ID = SCD, summaries as ICTID4D.
Name Your Project
BRIDGING THE DIGITAL GAP
Describe Your Idea
We organise computer/ICT community education/training
workshops/seminars, to educate/train girls/youths, women/community and underprivileged/disables, on how to use computer/ICT equipments to study/understand/share knowledge on community/world controversial issues.
Innovation
Project Description
We organise computer/ICT community education/training
workshops/seminars, to educate/train girls/youths, women/community and underprivileged/disables, on how to use computer/ICT equipments to study/understand/share knowledge on community/world controversial issues.
Unique and different
Organizing computer/ICT community education/training and stressing the use of cell phones/networking villages/communities with our main educational/training center called PRACASS ICT Empowerment Center (PICTEC), for knowledge acquisition and information dissemination is not only innovative but easily transferable from one social enterprise/association and organization/community of good will to another.
We have also created 25 mobile phone booths, in neighbouring villages/communities and encourage youths, women/community farmers/individuals to register on our network in order to acquire information daily from our services.
We use PICTEC on daily bases to collect information from our environment and internet, on issues like market prises, pest attacks, road conditions, political atmosphere and other social issues and disseminate it to all the members belonging to our network, via SMS to those having cell phones and to the phone booths for those with no cell phones (they also have note books which their personal information is always been written). Those without phones come to the booths nearest to them to collect information on daily bases.
Project plan
? We intern to;
? Create more mobile phone booths in villages/communities having only one, as membership population is increasing drastically.
? Instigate internet service providers to open up ICT centers in some of this villages/community.
? To bye an independent internet antenna, for PICTEC to reduce exorbitant prizes from our present providers.
? To introduce professional training programs in the center.
? Introduce short courses training on human rights, project and environmental management, marketing / advertisements, branding and CISCO networking.
Partnerships
Presently we have partnership with; Zamang Network of Associations Movements (ZANAM), we are founding members, so we network with them, Global Knowledge Partnership PICTEC project worn us a place and we participated in the last GK3 conference (10th - 14th /12/2008), Ref; Yin Peng Leon email; yinpeng123@gmail.com, Peace Child this community ICT project worn us a place in the just ended 4th World Youth Congress (11th – 22nd /08/2008), at Quebec Canada Ref; wyc@peacechild.org, Congolop through our ongoing participation in their project write up, Ref; congolop@gmail.com, umar@fas,harvard.edu (its thanks to Congolop that we meet Suria Lloyd, email; who informed/encourage us to enter this challenge), Global Youth Network (GYN) Ref; Peter Young email; orphansi@gmail.com, Kemilinks International Ref; Shola Taylor
Email; kemilinks@aol.com (we meet at GK3 conference, but presently we do their online translation programs from French to English and vice versa).
Impact
Impact
Collaboration with PRACASS and ZANAM, we have done a lot to the environment/community, as far as education/training in, computer/ICT/Internet, conservation, health/sanitation, HIV/AIDS, human rights abuse, good governance/democracy, gender inequality/child labor etc, also working with Va Na Va Ndinge a village/community women farmers organization, we designed a project to supply sustainable affordable cell phones to local subsistence farmers in the community. So far we have supplied 25 phones and opened 25 call booths to ease the farmers/community on their daily activities. This project worn a place in Stockholm Challenge (17th – 22nd / 05 / 2008). Ref; Uller Skiden email; ulla.skiden@stockholmchallenge.se, on HIV/AIDS in collaboration South West Drug Fund we are providing a lot of educational/training printed materials on that. Reference; Esambe Nnoko accountant Drug fund email; eknmbame@yahoo.com, on computer/ICT education/training in secondary schools, we have trained 28 teachers/numerous students Reference; Teboh Albert Akum computer instructor Bilingual Grammar School Molyko Buea. Email; kingtebs@mail.com, in future we hope to introduce professional training programs/short courses in the center.
Effectiveness
We have trained 32 teachers/15 community association leaders and 55 villages/community youths and more than 600 in colleges clubs.
How do you engage and impact the community?
Community individuals are selected from partner associations first, then other associations women and school dropout/unschooled population with priority given to girls/women then youths and community individuals. In water logged areas or islands, we carry our computers, flashes, disquiets, generators with down loaded stuffs from the internet to educate them.
In colleges, we work with the school authorities and train their teachers who also assist our trainers during their club days to train students who belong to computer club and leaders of other clubs.
In PICTEC center we allow trainees from public/private institutions to register and community individuals but all in all free training is granted to PLWHA and orphans aged between 12 – 40 years.
Generally our impact is based on education/training on Computer/internet and ICT literacy/manipulations to enable trainees acquire knowledge on;
1 ICT-NGOs capacity building on tactics to influence social development.
2 ICT- Education and training on social entrepreneurship.
3 ICT- HIV/AIDS, Unwanted pregnancy & Sexual reproductive health.
4 ICT- Family planning.
5 ICT- Democracy advancement and human rights monitoring.
6 ICT- Arts, Traditional and Cultural advancement.
7 ICT- Employment, volunteering and job creation.
8 ICT- Networking for information dissemination/sharing of ideas.
9 ICT-Marketing, Branding and Enterprise Image Building
10 ICT-and its role in Gender and Trade, Agriculture and Food Security.
11 ICT- Environmental conservation for biodiversity/global warming.
How do you measure this impact?
On the number of;
? Girls, youths/women and community individuals admitted/trained in every training session of five months, within PICTEC, community and school clubs.
? Individuals owning and manipulating phones.
? Registered with our mobile phones booths to acquire daily information.
? ICT centers that shall emerge in our villages/community and the number of persons browsing daily/weekly and monthly/yearly.
? Girls/women and youths who are operating private/personal phone booths.
? Girls/youths and women employed in village/community ICT centers.
? Feed backs from media and email write ups/phone calls verifying and congratulating or criticizing our project.
? Amount of income generated by PICTEC Parents/trainers association.
? Amount of income generated from PICTEC center from registration and provision of other services.
Obstacles
They are;
? The expensive nature of our Internet service provider.
? Shortage in electrical energy supply.
? Finance for the most needed poor populations, PLWHA, orphans don’t have any means to raise money even to attend workshops or pay transport/token fairs for their training.
? Insecurity which now hover in our community.
? Transportation of personnel’s/equipments to training sites.
? Not enough equipments/personnel have to run the project because of lack of finance.
? Allowances/salaries to pay volunteers/personnel’s respectively.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
Financing source
(or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)
For now its finance from money raised from;
? Membership contributions.
? Trainee’s registration and school fees.
? Parents Trainers/Trainees association.
? Hiring of PICTEC center/equipments on week ends
? Internet provision services.
? Provision of documentation services to the public.
? Benevolent individuals and associations.
In future we hope to write projects like this and obtain funding from bank loans, grants, awards and scholarships to PLWHA, orphans, underprivileged, disables etc.
Aside from financial sustainability, how do you plan to grow and sustain your project?
By;
? Struggling to increase our association’s membership and network.
? Create partnership with other national/international ICT/Internet centers and providers.
? Apply online searching for volunteers to assists us.
? Increasing our services like providing cable TV network to the public.
? Expand on our sphere of influence by exploiting other near by and distant communities/villages needing our services.
? Introduce professional/short courses training in the center.
? Organise escorting, symposiums/conferences and workshops, for associations to network with us and create partnership.
? Create a permanent website for the project and always write/post monthly or news letters.
? Introduce compulsory volunteer ship of five months for trained individuals of this project. If this is done it shall keep a steady stream of trainers working as volunteers to be paid only allowances.
? Organize radio/TV discussions exposing our activities.
Finance details
PICTEC membership/benevolent individuals/associations = 550.000 FCFA = $ 1309.52.
Registration Training fees, hiring, internet and documentary services 2008 = 850.000 FCFA = $ 2023.80.
Parent Trainers/Sympathizers Association (PTSA) = 250.000 FCFA = $ 595.23. Total = 1.650.000 FCFA = $ 3928.57.
Community associations and schools were we provide training courses always provides us with classrooms, didactic materials, like chalk, papers, card bord papers and sometimes computers for schools that have it like BGS Molyko Buea we use their internet center to train their students and community individuals staying around the area.
Also four of the training villages have provided us their community hall to be used during our community trainings. While the others have arranged with the primary schools around them, for us to use.
There are six personnel’s, 01 project officer in charge of the entire project, an office clack in charge of office duties, two permanent trainers and two volunteers for education/trainings.
There are 15 major partners that is schools, associations and village/community.
Creative funding
Through;
? Organization of PTSA Meetings.
? Hiring of PICTEC and equipments.
? Documentary services provision.
? Letter writing and personal contacts to benevolent/philanthropic individuals and associations.
Other non finance needs
They include;
? 04 laptops, 05 computers, 01 printer, 01 photocopier, 01 scanner, 05 Flashes, 02 Digital cameras, 02 Video cameras, 01 projector, three motto bikes, volunteer trainees, 15 more phone booths, 105 cheap and sustainable cell phones, larger office space, 01 generator.
The Story
Motivation
Now that computer education/ICT are globalizing the world and facilitating development, our communities/villages are still lacking behind in basic computer education/internet knowledge and mobile phones. Many Cameroonian villages/hinterland children/youths/women have never seen a computer or know about Internet. The enlightened once call them televisions.
So by the time youths go to towns to foster their education, they become excited as soon as they are exposed to computers/Internet. Instead of using the Internet to collect useful information, they chat/date, view pornographic films, play games and recently scamming.
Introducing computer/internet/ICT Education/Training in schools/villages is innovative, as most computer training centers/internet are located in big towns, making money through internet, with no education on computer/ICT or effects of cyber crimes, like InfoTech, Fotabe house etc, only a few secondary schools offer computer education/training in their curriculum.
So we carry our desk top computers with downloaded information in our flashes/disquiets to educate/train community/college youths/women on computer literacy/internet/ICT, sometimes we carry generators to sites where there is no electricity.
PICTEC is a social enterprise were youths/women/others, are encouraged to register and benefit from its services. While Orphans, disables, PLWHA and widows pay nothing for training. In all our employments/volunteer placements and admissions/trainings, priority is given to girls/women then youths/community, for gender desegregation/strategic planning.
Summarily our goal is to bring computer/internet/ICT education/training closer to the masses to help fight, HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancy, illiteracy, gender inequality, child labor/human right abuse/poor governance/democracy, poor conservational methods to alleviate poverty.
Awards
PICTEC social enterprise worn an award in Global Knowledge Partnership 3 (GK3), conference in Malaysia (10th - 14th / 12 / 2007) and a place in the just ended Peace Child’s 4th World Youth congress in Quebec Canada. It has also worn community prizes offered by the Buea rural council on two occasions.
Broader context
PICTEC’s trainings on the following topics;
? Computer literacy/internet and ICT education/training
? ICT-NGOs capacity building on tactics to influence social development.
? ICT- Education and training on social entrepreneurship.
? ICT- HIV/AIDS, Unwanted pregnancy & Sexual reproductive health.
? ICT- Family planning.
? ICT- Democracy advancement and human rights monitoring.
? ICT- Arts, Traditional and Cultural advancement.
? ICT- Employment, volunteering and job creation.
? ICT- Networking for information dissemination/sharing of ideas.
? ICT-Marketing, Branding and Enterprise Image Building
? ICT-and its role in Gender and Trade, Agriculture and Food Security.
? ICT- Environmental conservation for biodiversity/global warming.
wonderfully enlighten youths/women on controversial issues, plaguing them, society/country and continentally/globally.
Our objective of networking youths globally is a wonderful initiative in Cameroon/Africa, to introduce youths/women in the largest cheapest international library for research/sustainable development and shall not only educate/train our youths/women/community but help to conserve our environment, fight gender/human right, HIV/AIDS/poor health conditions and poor governance/sanitation malpractices.
Ongoing
Wonderfully with all vigour and progress, you know we are in the computer/ICT age and they have come to stay. No modern development or sustainable activity can succeed without computer/internet and ICT knowledge.
Infarct with computers poverty and illiteracy can easily be eradicated, as cheap and easy education/certificates or diplomas can be gotten in the internet with little or no stress, compared to schools education with exorbitant school fees.
With the youths/women seeing the importance of the internet/ICT and particularly cell phones/SMS, they will never stop at nothing until they work hard to bye and own/operate cell phone and manipulate computers.
Also with our government’s ongoing policy to give computers to schools and known training institutions like PICTEC and to introduce computer education/training in school curriculum, the program if accomplished shall go along way to sustain computer education/training in our communities hence fighting to eliminate illiteracy from our environment.
What is your age?
24
How did you hear about this competition?
Froim Suria Lyiods email; slloyd@youthventure.org she contacted us after reading our write ups in congolop ongoing competition 2008.
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 | monono said: Please James hope you need to write and communicate with me directly and I shall tell you more where are engaged an NGO or institution? ... about this Competition Entry. - 1005 days ago read more > |
| monono said: Dear jpmccabe, Thank you very much for your comments, I now believe that am up to changing the world for our betterment so please ... about this Competition Entry. - 1216 days ago read more > |
| jpmccabe said: hey, i think what your doing sounds fantastic. i completly agree IT really will make all the difference, was wondering if your aware ... about this Competition Entry. - 1216 days ago read more > |
| monono said: Dear Kate Myers, E-learning/education is today gaining graounds and educating many individuals who could not make it to schools when ... about this Competition Entry. - 1218 days ago read more > |
| KMEM said: Hey Ngando, You have some really great ideas! Can you elaborate more on the educational opportunities via distance learning? Thanks ... about this Competition Entry. - 1218 days ago read more > |
| teboh said: Dear Ngando and Staples organizers, I believe this is the sum total for rural development bridging the digitakl gap, as ngando says ... about this Competition Entry. - 1219 days ago read more > |
| harysusan said: Thanks very much for your compliments but am not alone we are in a team and thanks again for mentionaing the team. Bye for now about this Competition Entry. - 1220 days ago read more > |
| harysusan said: I think its wonderful being part of this success story I do sincerely wish every one to read this project and try to compare it to ... about this Competition Entry. - 1220 days ago read more > |
| lysonge said: well thanks I know you got the pass word and user name from the secreatry after trying to create you user name and pass word but try ... about this Competition Entry. - 1224 days ago read more > |
| lysonge said: Thanks for keeping track I shall send more so that the world should change for the betterment of children, girls, women, community, ... about this Competition Entry. - 1224 days ago read more > |
