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<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Hi to everybody,<br>
<br>
While I know that we are discussing what is a telecentre. I want to
share my insights of somos@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.<br>
<br>
Somos@telecentros <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="http://www.tele-centros.org">www.tele-centros.org</a> 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</font><font
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">, we did the declaration for the
prepcoms of WSIS in a consultation process with our members. The url is
</font><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.tele-centros.org/comunidad/encuentros/regionalII/declaracion.htm">http://www.tele-centros.org/comunidad/encuentros/regionalII/declaracion.htm</a><font
face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">, you also can fin in the WSIS web
page. This </font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">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@telecentros network and I am still looking that the energy that
we invested in
this process will attend the needs of our constituencies.<br>
<br>
However we used this process to develop a strategy inside of
somos@telecentros on how the practitioners of somos@telecentros could
influence in policies and regulations and do
lobby. It has been a extremely hard experience for the practitioners of
somos@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@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 </font><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.tele-centros.org/politicas/cursopoliticasonline.htm">http://www.tele-centros.org/politicas/cursopoliticasonline.htm</a><br>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">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@telecentros based on the national
agendas of the telecentres. We are still still search for support to
strength this process.<br>
</font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><br>
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.<br>
<br>
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?.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
.<br>
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.<br>
<br>
This are my five cents.<br>
<br>
Karin<br>
Board Member somos@telecentres<br>
Latin American and the Caribbean community <br>
base telecentre Network<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.tele-centros.org">www.tele-centros.org</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><br>
Michael Gurstein wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid004001c4a213$6b597680$6400a8c0@michael78xnoln">
<pre wrap="">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
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.ciresearcher.net">http://www.ciresearcher.net</a>
-----Original Message-----
From: <a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:telecentres-bounces@wsis-cs.org">telecentres-bounces@wsis-cs.org</a>
[<a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="mailto:telecentres-bounces@wsis-cs.org">mailto:telecentres-bounces@wsis-cs.org</a>] On Behalf Of Andy Carvin
Sent: September 24, 2004 12:51 AM
To: <a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:telecentres@wsis-cs.org">telecentres@wsis-cs.org</a>
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 (<a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:plenary@wsis-cs.org">plenary@wsis-cs.org</a>) 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 (<a
class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.wsis-cs.org">www.wsis-cs.org</a>) 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
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org">http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog/">http://www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog/</a>
--------------------------------------
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</pre>
</blockquote>
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