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

[Gáspár Mátyás]

Dear All
 
Some methodological notices to the telecentre concept. In Hungary for
ten years of our telecentre (telecottage) movement we couldn't exactly
define, what is a telecentre/telecottage (we see there is no two totally
similar among our telecottages), although we have them close to 600. It
isn't a problem, doesn't make any confusion in our work. But we have a
so called "telecottage minimum". The minimum requirements for using the
protected name of "telehaz" (telehouse) by any service organisation.
This list of requirements should serve as baseline for telecottage
quality assurance, which is not introduced yet in Hungary. So, when
searching the definition (or basic characteristics) of the service
organisation called telecentre, I suggest to make difference between
basic features (telecentre minimum) and additional ones. All this
characteristics (basic and additional) should be anderstood as so called
"adaptation points", because in different situations of telecentre
countries, the content, measures can be different (like broadband,
number of workstations related to the local population, etc.).
 
Matyas Gaspar
 
-----Original Message-
From: telecentres-bounces at wsis-cs.org
[mailto:telecentres-bounces at wsis-cs.org] On Behalf Of Don Cameron
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2004 12:02 PM
To: 'Karin Delgadillo Poepsel'; telecentres at wsis-cs.org
Subject: RE: [Telecentres] RE: [Telecentre's] Basic Telecentre Items
 
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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