The FLASCO networking programme was, along with Radiotelecentro from Brazil, one of the two winners of APC’s 2005 Betinho Communication Prize. According to the jury, these are “two extraordinary projects… that are improving the lives of individuals and communities in Latin America and producing real economic benefits”.
What exactly is this programme about? What is its real impact, what real life stories are to be found in the background? What was the experience of participating in a competition like APC’s Betinho Prize? APCNews discussed this via email with the programme’s team [1].
[1] Director: María Angélica Celedón; methodological consultant: María Inés Salamanca; community sector managers: Sigrid Huenchuñir and Raquel Cerda, communications and website sector consultant: Patricia Peña.
Life stories
The rural farmers’ cooperative that manages one of the community telecentres of the programme created a system for daily meteorological reports. Producers now plan their harvests and crops more efficiently.
The only operational telecentre in Santiago, the capital, is fighting against the historic exclusion that the visually impaired and blind have suffered in terms of information and communication technologies. Using custom-designed tools, they are planning to access the electronic world in a not very distant future.
An artisan, through a telecentre in her area, has been able to research new techniques via the internet and she has come into contact with people who do the same thing she does. She has become a micro-business woman.
These three specific experiences give an account of strategic uses of technology to improve the lives of individuals and communities in different contexts, according to their needs. They all share a common catalysing programme….
The network, organisations and communities
During the past few years, FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) Chile has been firmly committed to creating social capital with the help of networks. Through prior initiatives, different organisations worked together, recognised common challenges and generated strong collaborative ties. The need for sustainable access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) to keep these ties – which became indispensable – active, arose from the communities themselves, most of which were rural and had a high poverty index. Community telecentres therefore appear as a “custom made” solution: this model proposes that the grassroots organisations themselves independently assume the management thereof.
The relationship with the organisations is one of the pillars of the programme, an area not left to chance at all. Two community development professionals ensure that there is a fluid and constant exchange. The rest of the team keeps this in mind during its daily activities.
National training conferences have been held (seven to date) where issues such as organisational strengthening, project management, networking methodology, the management and administration of telecentres are discussed. Training on the use and appropriation of ICTs, GNU/Linux, the use of the telecentroscomunitarios.cl website and content publishing is also offered.
The women interviewed, state that “the contribution that the organisations themselves make has been fundamental for the development of the project. In this sense, they are considered another “member”… and this promotes a relationship that provides the needed freedom of action for each group to develop its own project, define its own objectives and strengthen its experience”.
The community integration process was gradually implemented and continues today. The team adds: “during the first phase it was key to disseminate and raise awareness on the logic (why) and the importance of becoming involved in the project and taking advantage of the opportunities and benefits of working with a social use [of ICTs] model.” Telecentres are now perceived as places where people can go learn to use the equipment and the network (through periodically offered digital literacy courses) and also as a place to meet other members of the community, neighbours, to converse and interact on what is happening to them as a group and as a community”.
Present and future
What can be done for this successful experience to continue growing? The Betinho Prize arose as a great opportunity. The application process “was a challenge in itself, an exercise in observation, and the systemisation of the experience”. It was also undoubtedly a success, since the networking programme managed to convince the jury and become the new winner. Beyond offering an economic contribution, the prize was also a springboard to disseminate and share the spirit that underlies this model and to contact other organisations that work on the social appropriation of ICTs. In the words of the interviewees: “it was news that has given increased national and international visibility to an experience that is happening silently at the local level”.
Regarding the network and the organisations and communities that compose it, the impact was no less important. The programmes team recounts: “the news generated a feeling of unity and of joint achievement, because it doesn’t recognise the programme but rather each of the members that make the network work every day”.
The future is promising. The idea of broadening and optimising the project is already underway and bearing fruit. The network plans to extend itself both within Chile as well as in other countries. This includes the dissemination of software, training materials and content that has been created for groups, like the Mapuche communities, people with disabilities, and rural women, people often marginalised during the technological process.
The programme is ambitious and aspires to transcend, without devaluing it, the work with grassroots organisations. The interviewees sum it up: “we hope that the programme will be strengthened as an area to work on and research within FLACSO Chile, as it has been at the headquarters in Ecuador and Mexico”. Imagining them in ten years time, she concluded: “we would like to have contributed to the construction of a new generation of ICT-related telecommunication and social public policies, as well as the Chilean digital agenda”.
Read in-depth FLACSO reports on telecentres, view the photos and enjoy the stories…
>FLACSO and the networking programme: reconciling theory and practice
>Women and community telecentre: Shy at first, first at last
>Content production, community tool
>Telecentres and free software
>Indigenous communities: Mapuche telecentres
Photo: The Grand Opening of the Uniones (Graneros) telecentre. The contribution that the organisations themselves make has been fundamental for the development of the project. Each of them seeks collaborating networks, defines its objectives and strengthens its experience.
– Articles in the series translated from Spanish by APC