[Telecentres] RE: [Telecentre's] Basic Telecentre Items

[Don Cameron]

Hi Karin,

 

Thank you for highlighting just how much diversity we have in our movement
and fantastic to read of your grass-root efforts to engage Telecentre
practitioners in the process of WSIS. I congratulate you on endeavours to
promote advocacy, participation and education, and look forward to any ideas
that help intermediaries express the realities of life facing Telecentre
practitioners.

 

A difficulty I have in providing input into this question of "What is a
Telecentre" is exactly as you suggest; there is no single model. Your post
also leads to awareness that my input to date might be construed as
suggesting that all Australian Telecentre's are funded and fundamentally the
same. As you rightly suggest they are not and my apologies if I gave this
impression. Many of our Telecentre's are located in comparatively affluent
towns and communities and received start-up funds from Government. A great
many others are located in impoverished remote indigenous towns and villages
working with the very poor and illiterate. Like your example, many of these
remote "Telecentre's" (usually not named as such) do not have computers or
telephones other than perhaps a single donated satellite phone and exist
with no Government support whatsoever. The reason they lack this support is
because they were ineligible for funds lacking as they do in capacity to
prove a potential for financial sustainability to Govt grant providers. This
was identified by many practitioners as one of the fundamental flaws of our
early grant processes - the fact recipients had to prove a capacity for
sustainability before any funds would be provided. Those who could not prove
this capacity did not receive any support. 

 

Yet there is a commonality of purpose of all these Telecentre's - All
Telecentre's work as part of our communities for community gain. I don't
distinguish the efforts of a Telecentre working with the very poor and
illiterate as fundamentally any different to a Telecentre working for a more
affluent community yet dealing with issues of youth suicide, drug abuse and
local economic decline. All are challenges worthy of our efforts and
attention. One aspect we are yet to touch on is the number of Telecentre's
working to mitigate social decline brought about through the very
introduction of ICT's - Community Telecentre's smart enough to realise how
ICT's are a double edged sword offering gain as well as loss, and developing
strategies to mitigate the downside of community ICT's (perhaps another
topic for another day).

 

I'm not sure I completely agree that all Telecentre's are just "tools for
community" because in many remote communities the Telecentre is the
community. These are the type of Telecentre where the facility is often
someone's home; where all the planning, management and resources are
provided by the community; where gatherings are the community coming
together for a common purpose. A tool describes a device or instrument;
community describes a group of people associated by interest or purpose. In
my experience of remote Telecentre's the term usually describes the people
more than the tools or technology - i.e. "We are the Telecentre"; not "Here
is the Telecentre". I'm not sure I have properly expressed this culture so I
hope my words make sense.

 

Rgds, Don

 

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