[Telecentres] working group background, organizing principles

[Karin Delgadillo Poepsel]

Hi to everybody,

While I know that we are discussing what is a telecentre.  I want to 
share my insights of somos en telecentros and the Wsis process that can 
contribute to clarify the role of the working group that has been 
created the same to give insights to Elisabeth. Sorry for my spanglish. 
Do not hesitate to make questions if you do not understand my spanglish.

Somos en telecentros www.tele-centros.org has been working on the sidelines 
of the WSIS process. By sidelines I mean that we used the spaces that 
has been formed specially by civil society. In fact we participated in 
the declaration of Ministries in Bavaro and in the prepcoms in Geneva. 
Carlos Afonso from RITS  in Brazil has been working with the civil 
society closely in all the prepecoms. As a product of our second 
regional encounter celebrated in Quito, april 2003, we did the 
declaration for  the prepcoms of WSIS in a consultation process with our 
members. The url is 
http://www.tele-centros.org/comunidad/encuentros/regionalII/declaracion.htm, 
you also can fin in the WSIS web page. This declaration it is still 
lying in a beautiful paper, websites and in some books that people and 
organizations who are involved  WSIS promoted and printed.  So we are 
still succeeding with failure in order that WSIS take in consideration 
some of the needs of somos en telecentros network and I am still looking 
that the energy that we invested in this process will attend the needs 
of our constituencies.

However we used this process to develop a strategy inside of 
somos en telecentros on how the practitioners of somos en telecentros could 
influence in policies and regulations and do lobby. It has been a 
extremely hard experience for the practitioners of somos en telecentros 
network, becauser se realize that we need training. That is why we 
worked hardly in developing the first online and face to face training 
workshops on policies, regulations and advocacy of telecentres, 
concentrating very much on supporting the profile of practitioners of 
telecentres in the national chapters of somos en telecentros network for 
lobbying and advocacy.  So in this way will be these leaders who will 
advocate the needs of the telecentres practitioners and thier 
communties. They will  do  the link from the ground level to the 
national, regional and global level.  So practitioners can be trained 
and be in the places were the decisions are taking place in the 
national  and regional level. It is very important to define a regional 
agenda and participate in spaces like WSIS in order to advocate their 
needs. Please see the summary of this process in  
http://www.tele-centros.org/politicas/cursopoliticasonline.htm
A book and a cd is going to be printed very soon, manual for 
practitioners of telecentres for lobbying and advocacy of polices and 
regulations to advocate the needs of the communities that are using 
telecentres will be launch at the end of this month. This process has 
been supported by IDRC and ICA. We are still working hard in the 
training process of the practitioners of telecentres to advocate, lobby 
and influence in policies and regulations for telecentres. The second 
phase of this process is to consolidate a regional team of influencing 
in policies and regulations of somos en telecentros based on the national 
agendas of the telecentres. We are still still search for support to 
strength this process.

One of my biggest concerns in the creation of this list and defining a 
work group  is that it still exist a gap of those who are in the 
international scenarios such as in WSIS and the real communities  and 
practitioners of telecentres who are in the ground facing challenges to 
survive. It is not linked the process of wsis with the real needs and 
demands that practitioners of telecentres and their communities are 
facing. It exist of course intermediaries that interpret their needs but 
the real appropriation and mechanism of communication are not in place. 
So it would be a role and responsibility of this group to find 
mechanisms to express the voice of those who are directly on the ground.

In what way WSIS can be a platform to advocate their needs and find 
strategies to full fill their demands by establish methods and 
mechanisms from the ground level to the global level?  Elisabeth would 
be great if you incorporate in the workgroup that you are suggesting, 
how it should be address this challenge?.

I am thinking loudly in order to find common understanding of what are 
the real issues that as telecentres should advocate based on the needs 
of its constituencies and use the scenarios as WSIS or others in order 
to advocate their needs and influence in policies.

I am a person that instead of doing new things we should use the spaces 
that has been already created, make bridges in order to have a better 
influence and brake the isolation, use the capacities of organizations 
that are already working in this issues and define mechanisms to have a 
stronger impact. I strongly belief on networks so I would suggest to 
focus on the challenges of the past, our failures in this process and 
find a common strategy based on the needs of our constituencies  so 
mechanisms are in place as well.
.
I would love to know what has been the experience of practitioners of 
telecentres and networks that has bee participating in the WSIS process. 
How are linking the needs of their constituencies and what process was 
set up in place in order to have a better impact.

This are my five cents.

Karin
Board Member somos en telecentres
Latin American and the Caribbean community
base telecentre Network
www.tele-centros.org




Michael Gurstein wrote:

>Andy and all,
>
>The Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN) with which a number of
>those on this list are affiliated will be meeting f2f next week in
>Prato, Italy. One of the topics of discussion will be a possible role
>for CIRN in WSIS (while CIRN is not directly registered as a Civil
>Society group within the WSIS context, several national representative
>and other formally registered CS organizations are active participants
>in CIRN and will be represented at the Prato meeting). 
>
>CIRN as a network of researchers and practitioner/researchers concerned
>with enabling communities with Information and Communications
>Technologies has a very strong and active interest in supporting the
>development of Telecentres as points of community internet access.  I
>should mention as well though, that our interest goes beyond simple
>access through Telecentres to working with communities to make effective
>use of this access in support of locally based development including for
>health, local economic and social development, environmental management
>and others.
>
>I'm sure CIRN's on-going relationship with this Network will be an
>element in our discussions and I would guess that our conclusion would
>be to actively support this initiative in whatever manner seems to be
>most useful and generally productive.
>
>As to a preferred organizational structure for this working group, there
>seems no particular reason at this point to move towards a formalized
>structure (but perhaps I'm wrong) and that it might be more useful for
>the group to get to know each other a bit better first and also to
>further explore the issues of concern to determine what the appropriate
>nature of the "representativeness" for this group should be.
>
>Best,
>
>Mike Gurstein
>(Interim) Chair: CIRN 
>http://www.ciresearcher.net
>
> 
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: telecentres-bounces en wsis-cs.org
>[mailto:telecentres-bounces en wsis-cs.org] On Behalf Of Andy Carvin
>Sent: September 24, 2004 12:51 AM
>To: telecentres en wsis-cs.org
>Subject: [Telecentres] working group background, organizing principles
>
>
>Stuart Mathison wrote:
>
>
> >> - My suggestion is that we advocate on the two previous questions. 
>An issue,
> >> however, is the mechanics through which the collective voice of this
>working  >> group can make itself heard. Are we "official"? Can we be
>registered 
>as a
> >> civil society entity? How do we appoint people to represent the
>group?  >>
>
>
>In the simplest terms, yes, we are already "official." When the UN
>decided to host the WSIS meetings, it was agreed that civil society
>organizations could become accredited delegates, along with governments,
>UN agencies, international donors, etc. This meant that civil society
>organizations would have a voice in the deliberations, though not a
>vote. Prior to the first WSIS meeting in Geneva, civil society
>organizations began to organize, setting up caucuses and working groups
>on a variety of issues, such as human rights, gender, education, youth;
>there were also groups set up by region (Latin American family, North
>American family, etc). Participation in these working groups is
>voluntary, with each working group existing because there was critical
>mass of volunteers to work in that area. Civil society also created a
>plenary email list (plenary en wsis-cs.org) for all working group members
>to join, as well as a civil society bureau comprised of representatives
>from each working group to represent civil society's interests when it
>comes to logistical planning for each summit and prepcom, etc.
>
>This June, at the CTCNet conference in Seattle, I co-hosted a meeting of
>the North American group. During the meeting we discussed civil
>society's wsis activities, and the role telecenter activists were
>playing in the process. Some of us noted how the telecenter movement
>could fall through the cracks because its interests were spread out
>amongst various other working groups. So I proposed the idea of
>organizing a new civil society working group for telecenters.
>
>Following recommendations of members of the civil society bureau, I
>proposed the idea on the CS plenary list, and proposed it during CS
>plenary meetings in Tunisia at the most recent Prepcom meeting.
>Participants were supportive of the idea, and there were no objections,
>so I was encouraged to found the new working group. The bureau then
>created the email discussion group for us on the official WSIS civil
>society server (www.wsis-cs.org) in late August, which brings us to
>where we are now.
>
>So to summarize: our group is an official civil society working group,
>and we can offer input to the civil society plenary and participate in
>other civil society activities. I'm the one who proposed and founded the
>group, and so far I'm facilitating the group. If the group would like to
>be more formal, we could have a discussion about who is serving as
>chairperson, or "focal point," to use the civil society bureau
>terminology. I'm perfectly happy to serve in this role, but would not
>want to force myself upon the group either simply because I came up with
>the idea.
>
>Most other groups have a sole focal point serving as chairperson, but
>others have co-chairs, or a chairperson and a couple of vice chairs.
>Personally, I think this is a good idea, since it would allow for some
>geographic diversity.
>
>So I suppose we have three models to consider:
>
>1. One person (I or someone else) could serve as sole focal point
>(chairperson) for the working group.
>
>2. Two people - perhaps one from the North, one from the South - could
>serve as co-chairs.
>
>3. One person as focal point, with multiple people (two or three others)
>as vice chairs.
>
>So I'd like to propose we discuss this. Does anyone have any strong
>feelings as to how the group's leadership shall be organized? And are
>there nominations for people to play any of these roles? As I said, I'm
>perfectly happy to do this myself, but think it would be good to share
>some of the responsibility with one or more people representing other
>parts of the world, particularly the South....
>
>
>ac
>
>--------------------------------------
>Andy Carvin
>Program Director
>EDC Center for Media & Community
>acarvin @ edc . org
>http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org
>http://www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog/
>--------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
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