We make information available to persons without access of computers and internet. We translate to local language hence increasing comprehension of the contents.

Despite the fact that the world is a global village dully connected by world wide web, most people can still not access the web in sub-Saharan Africa. According to Opennet a research organization, African Internet users account for less than 5 percent of the world’s online population, and many countries’ Internet penetration rates are less than 1 percent. Although the world has embraced ICT and the internet for dissemination of important information, the above reason has dwarfed the growth of local initiatives because of lack of access to important funding, educative or life saving information.

We have taken to us a task to access the web, ransack for important information meaningful to our local community and grassroots initiatives. We mainly look for call for proposals releases, fellowships, Global health updates, Human Rights related updates and educative information, HIV/Aids related information and general information that will enhance global solidarity and connect our villages to the world. We download information then translate to local languages if necessary and print so as to disseminate it in hard copies since access to computers is still a dream yet to be achieved.

Problem

Access to information is the cornerstone to good governance, meaningful participation, and increasing transparency, and is recognized as a fundamental human right. Since 2010 FOH has supported the establishment of an access to information culture this was arrived at after realization that the biggest barrier that hampered our progress was lack of access to information. Shockingly this is a common predicament shared among many local initiatives. Despite being in 21st century where information access is simplified people in our community still live in darkness. Poverty and illiteracy are the major catalysts. Access to life saving information on touching issues like HIV/Aids and Human Rights are still poor. However the most barrier that hamper development is lack of information on resources to local initiatives. These are resources on donors, fellowships, training, workshops and online materials that can make work simple as well create global collaboration and publicity. Mainly because of poverty many people do not have access to computers and printed materials not to mention internet. Despite the world being an open space dully connected by internet many people do not access it.

Solution

We have a resources tab on our website that we encourage people especially youths who have access of internet download resources on HIV/Aids & Human Rights. We have plans to maximize use of this tab to make available online via our website current information on donors, fellowships, training opportunities and training materials as well as guides and online support to these topics. However, because most people do not have internet access nor computers we have taken to us a task to source all available information from the government and the globe which disseminates mainly through internet and make it available to the village dwellers. We therefore ransack the web download and print all information found useful to individuals and local initiatives we network with some of which do not have people familiar with computers, they therefore depend on us to pass on important information especially donor opportunities and educative/training materials. Because most of the materials are disseminated in English we have taken to task to translate to Swahili and local language Kikuyu in order to increase comprehension of the contents. Most time we do this without prior permission from the source not because we want to disregard the law but to beat deadlines that most call for proposals carry. Our printed materials are made available to beneficiaries free of charge. The dissemination of government materials is still at snail pace, we have as well taken to task to get the materials from government offices and Kiambu district hospital and make it available in the villages.

Example

We make IT and media have relevance and useful to the local village dweller by serving as a conduit of information linking the villagers to global village via the web. We access the web, download and print educative and calls for funds and fellowship proposals. We a notch higher by simplifying and translating the contents to local languages. We make these available to local initiatives which have taken advantage of these to empower their work force and access donor resources. We are also making use of social media to publicize and promote our cause. A good example is when our organization was nominated in 2010 Out of the Box Prize from Kansas University-USA, we made use of facebook and twitter to send word around seeking people to peruse the finalists and vote for our project. Although our project stood out, the social media helped us reach many people far and wide and managed to raise enough votes which together with judge’s decision saw us clinch 2nd position out of 309 entries from 42 countries. This has made our project to expand and support more beneficiaries. It is just good to reckon that we found this opportunity through the web and therefore IT and media is a great catalyst to our progress and now we want to replicate its exploitation to fellow local initiatives.

Marketplace

Fortunately or unfortunately there are no local initiatives making online resources available to village dwellers. The only known online resource is htt://jobsbar.co.ke which is owned by the government and list jobs vacancies mostly within Kenya. Though they as well send jobs opportunities to their mailing list it is good to note their website is not launched and is still under-construction. We wish to establish a local online resource in the like of http://fundsforngos.org. Our roles will be more from just making the information available to printing, simplifying if necessary and translating the contents to the local languages since most of our beneficiaries can not read English and do not have computers or internet access. The challenge we have is establishing links with many global donors and resourceful establishments that will make opportunities released to us as soon as they are released so as to play at par with other online notice boards. We also need resources that will enable us have a full time staff responsible for surveillance of new opportunities and an exclusive website for posting new opportunities and offering guidance to local grassroot initiatives.