Discover the experience of the Ciptagelar Community Network in Indonesia through inspiring videos
"Now, to get stable internet access, there is no need to go to higher places such as the mountains," explains Elva Yulia, a teacher and local resident of the Ciptagelar Indigenous village in Indonesia who delivers some of her lectures online. Climbing mountains to get internet access may seem like a distant reality if you're reading this from a large urban centre or an area with easy and affordable connectivity to the internet. But this is a challenge faced by this and many other communities in rural and mountainous regions of the country, where around 12,000 villages are still disconnected. In addition, there are differences in the price of broadband internet service between regions in Indonesia, as in many other countries around the world, making it cheaper in large urban centres while in rural areas it is more expensive.
Yulia's statement is part of a video produced by APC member organisation Common Room Networks Foundation, which works with art, culture, communication and new technologies in Indonesia. Among its projects, Common Room has been a long-standing partner of the Ciptagelar Indigenous village, where it helped build community network infrastructure – a solution found to overcome both the gaps in internet connectivity and to promote the appropriation of digital technologies by local residents in a way that would strengthen the maintenance of their culture and traditions.
In 2019, Common Room began working with community networks in collaboration with the Local Networks initiative (LocNet) led by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Rhizomatica. The first project supported by LocNet was meant to expand internet access in one village and distribute it to five neighbouring villages. Training was also carried out with community members, especially young people. The next step was to work on the internet infrastructure.
Through partnerships like these, today the Ciptagelar Community Network’s outreach is much bigger and growing. According to Common Room co-founder Gustaff Iskandar, the internet is expanding to about 43 different hamlets located in 12 villages, with about 1,000 to 1,500 users daily.
The experience in Ciptagelar also planted the seeds for a bigger movement: building on the previous experience there, Common Room helped to set up a local Wi-Fi community network and connectivity infrastructure in Ciracap, around 100 kilometres away, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, as we showcased in another column in 2022. Recently, a local news article announced a joint effort to bring internet connectivity to the village of Toro. Every year, Common Room also hosts the Rural ICT Camp in Indonesia, gathering several people to discuss the digital transformation needed to foster the inclusion of remote places (find out more in this recap video on the 2023 Rural ICT Camp).
In this column we will find out more about the seeds of change planted by the Ciptagelar Community Network through a couple of inspiring videos that feature the voices of local residents.
VIDEO 1: Community Network Infrastructure Project - Ciptagelar
VIDEO 2: Documentation of Bamboo Tower Making (Indonesia, 2022)
Connected to seed change
In the first video, as well as seeing the beautiful landscape that surrounds the village, we get to meet some of its residents and understand the impact of this internet community network on their lives. They mention the internet as an enabler for students to complement learning, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to do research online. The network also connects farmers with markets and supports their businesses, as well as allowing the villagers to share all the rich local culture with other villages – as we learn from Anggi, a resident who is part of the crew of CIGATV, a local community television that was abe to reach a wider audience via the internet. "The development of internet infrastructure in Ciptagelar has made CIGATV's coverage even wider. First its coverage was only around Ciptagelar. Now, thanks to the internet, CIGATV can be accessed in various rural areas around here," he explains in the video.
Beyond using the community network, the local population also learned how to create and maintain it. Also, in the Ciptagelar Laboratory, children can learn about technology use and topics like electronics, mechanics, repair systems, alternative solutions, etc. – all under a local concept that is valued by community members, which speaks about their ability to adjust local traditions to make them continue in balance with new knowledge.
The community network was also the trigger for the creation of other infrastructure locally, such as the bamboo tower we see in the second video. The tower was created to raise the connection antennas with this natural resource that can be found in the region – a more sustainable and economical alternative to the metal towers common in the telecoms industry.
Living in harmony
The continuity of the Ciptagelar Indigenous culture and traditions is important not only for this community, but for the entire forest that surrounds it, since they have co-existed in harmony for many generations. In the Routing for Communities podcast, we learn that the name Ciptagelar comes from the Sundanese word "sepuh", which means "old" and refers to a way of life based on ancestral traditions, with a harmonious relationship with nature and protection of the environment. Located in the midst of mountains and surrounded by a dense forest in the Halimun National Park, the Ciptagelar Indigenous village’s population is around 30,000 people, who live in more than 500 hamlets cultivating its traditional farming practices and culture. The majority of the population are farmers, and subsistence is based on the cultivation of rice. The region has many traditional foods and arts.
It was Abah Ugi Sugriana Rakasiwi, the chief leader of the Indigenous community, who asked Common Room if it would be possible to build a local infrastructure to access the internet in around 2014, as Iskandar tells us in the podcast. The challenge was accepted by the Common Room team, and starting in 2016, they began running a series of experiments. Two years later, they managed to provide internet service in some areas of the village through a collaboration with a local internet service provider (ISP) based in Rangkasbitung in Banten Province – the neighbouring region of West Java Province, 200 kilometres away from the Ciptagelar Traditional Village, in a journey that takes more than seven hours by car.
Over the last few years, Indonesia has become a regional and global pioneer in creating sustainable alternatives that centre on the community and are capable of overcoming connectivity challenges. “We have been learning a lot that community network infrastructure development is not merely about the physical internet infrastructure per se. In order to have an appropriate approach to internet development among rural communities, we also need to conduct a cultural approach, including recognising local culture and traditions. After all, the internet is not only a platform that local communities can use to communicate and access information, but also a useful space to enhance artistic and cultural expressions,” highlights Gustaff.
The Routing for Communities podcast celebrates community networks around the world. Listen to Episode #6: Community networks enabling art, culture and communication in Indonesia.
Did this story inspire you to plant seeds of change in your community? Share your story with us at communications@apc.org