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<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Hi Don,<br>
<br>
Thanks for your message. I do agree with you and your approach because
that is responding to the dynamic of Australia and the system in place
there. Reading your mail, make me realize that we are fractals of the
system and that means that we live in a systemic society. Communities
responds to the structure of that society that are in place and their
rules. In Ecuador we have grassroots communities, indigenous cofanes
communities as an example, as well as slum areas that are organized as
a community, street children and other type of communities as you
explain when people gather and meet because they have a need or
interest. In this context telecentres plays a role. telecentres, people
and community can not been seen isolated and we need to see in a
holistic way. In your experience remote telecentres is the community.
In my experience as well, community or communal houses are the meeting
point and the telecentre plays a role in it, normaly people do not call
telecentre. They call "jambi huasi" or casa communal, I mean it
reflects their cultural background and reality. I do agree with your
concept we are the telecentre not the telecentre is there, that is why
in this concept of communal house or jambi huasi, computer, loud
speaker, mural newspaper or just the assembly are tools that attends
the needs of that community. You call telecentre, i do call also
telecentre in the international scenario but I do not call telecentre
in the local escenario, people call as they feel responds to their
cultural reality. The importance is to highlight the concept of a
telecentre responding to the dynamics of a community and how digital
technologies among others could respond to the needs of that community.
We described a telecentre as: Community telecentres are powerful tool
for supporting community development through the use of digital
technologies linked to their own ways of communication. Community
telecentres represents and experiment in using digital technologies as
tools for human development within a community. The stress here is on
the social use and appropriation of technological tools and
communication tools that responds to the needs and demands of the
community . Community telecentres are places for social encounter and
interaction, for learning, for personal growth and for mobilizing
efforts to address community problems and needs. <big><big><span
lang="ES" style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
the telecentres do not only respond to the
communication and information needs of the community. Instead, they are
also an
instrument for measuring the impact telecomnunication tools have in
advancing
social equity and economic development at the grassroots. </span></big></big><br>
</font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><br>
In remote and impoverished groups in Ecuador and Latin American, people
are thinking how I am going to survive, not I need computers or a
telecentre. 70 percent of the population lives under the line of
poverty, so their needs are focused on how I am going to eat and the
community house is the center or focal point to gather meet and plan.
A telecentre emerge in this concept because internet could be a tool to
attend such demands linked to their own ways of communication if they
got connectivity if they do not got connectivity they find ways on how
digital technologies can be used . Let me explain or describe a story
so people understand better what I mean specially in the concept that
are not the telecentre it is the dynamic. Apparently this is story is
negative but it is not. Sorry for the lenght of the message.<br>
<br>
</font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><b><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">PASTOCALLE:
MATANGA AND PUCARA INDIGENOUS
COMMUNITY<o:p></o:p></span></b></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">CATALYSING
LIFE-ALTERING CHANGES<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">This very
special story began in February 1998<span style=""> </span>and
continues until today. In sharing it, I
will not mention names because of the sensitive nature of what is
currently
going on in the community and because the women in these indigenous
communities
requested me to protect their privacy.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Pastocalle,
a town in the Andean highlands, is located
3.100 meters above sea level. The population is made up of indigenous
people
and mestizos; most are small farmers. The community decided at one
point that
they had to have a computer. In order to buy one, they sold many of
their
guinea pigs and other animals. Having finally acquired a computer, they
installed it in their community house. Chasquinet helped connect
Pastocalle
through the telecentre, which was used by the farmers to their
advantage when
their potato crops were hit by a strange plague of ants. (But I am
getting
ahead of the story)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">The farmers,
at their wits’ en on how to save their
crops, decided to make not one but several costly trips to Quito to try
to
secure help from the Ministry of Agriculture. The government was, after
all,
supposed to help the people. But the visits to the Ministry office
produced
nothing for the farmers. Just as when the farmers were about to give
up, the
farmers met Chasquinet which put them in touch with other farmers
organisations
who could help them. And help the farmers of Pastocalle got. Plenty in
fact.
Eventually, thorough the help of other farmer organisations and by
accessing
information through the Internet, the farmers of Pastocalle were able
to solve
the problem.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">But there’s
more.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">To get the
community to learn how to run and use the telecentre,
Chasquinet conducted a series of training with the people. The women
were most
active in the entire exercise. They were mostly concerned about
protecting the
ecosystem of the community. And it was most natural for them to mount a
campaign to declare the zone between Matanga a Pucara an ecological
reserve
thereby preventing the sale of the land to a Dutch company that wanted
to build
a hotel in the area. From strategising and running the campaign, it was
the
women who took the driver’s seat, so to speak.<span style="">
</span>Using the internet and local Ecuadorian media, the women of
Pastocalle
received a lot of support for their advocacy.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">The
experiences of the women encouraged the local
community to get interested how to harness the tools of the Internet
for their
various goals. The young people, for example, decided they wanted to
create
webpages to promote ecotourism. The women also started ways to use the
Internet
to promote their clothing micro-enterprise by streamlining
administration and
marketing. So the whole community began learning about the other worlds
beyond
the Andean highlands. What could be the better way of ending this story?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Except that
this is not yet the end.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">One day, a
group of girls approached<span style=""> </span>me with a bit of
gossip. The boys, they said
in the hushed tones, were using the Internet to access pornographic
sites. I
caught myself just in time before I blurted out to agree with them that
the
boys were wrong. Instead, I asked the girls about what they felt aout
the
situation and why they thought it was wrong for the boys to be ogling
at naked
women in the Internet.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">What was
revealed to me afterwards triggered the
discovery of a very serious problem in the community –one that is not
easy to
confront and address. I found out that most of the furs ad been raped
by an
uncle or some other male relative. Concerned for the girls, I brought
out the
information with the community women. I soon realised that the women’s
sufferings ran long and deep. Many of them had also been raped by their
male
relatives.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">I began to
use the internet to look for support and
healing, because unfortunately no one here in Ecuador except the elite
has
access to this type of emotional help and therapy. Meanwhile, the
internet
training sessions with the girls and women continued; but most often
than not,
these sessions became a venue for the women to<span style="">
</span>open up about their experiences of domestic abuse and their
husband’s
alcoholism. The sessions became a forum for mutual support and
solidarity. An
energy of caring was created and fostered and practices of solidarity
began to
develop. The women quickly transformed the telecentre into a space of
their own
where they could collectively support and heal each other.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Meanwhile,
the men became uneasy and annoyed. By then,
we had decided to prioritise the women’s training course, which I now
think was
a mistake. The men felt envious of the attention the women were
getting. They
became increasingly bothered by the courses’s strong emphasis on
harnessing
self-esteem.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Until one
day, a woman whom I will call Rosita,
arrived at our training session with a black eye and blood on her
cheek. In
between sobs, Rosita’s story<span style=""> </span>of
long-standing abuse and humiliation in the hands of her husband poured
out. I
felt then that it was important for Rosita to cry and share what had
happened
to her with the group which diminished her feelings of isolation.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">A week
after, Rosita returned to the telecentre,
beaming. For the first time in her life, she told us, she stood up to
her
husband. She defended herself, and more than that, she hit back at her
husband
using<span style=""> </span>a stick to deliver the message
that she will no longer cower in fear. Rosita was triumphant and it
showed.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Not soon
after disaster struck. The community’s
leadership changed hands and two days after Rosita’s brave
confrontation
with<span style=""> </span>her husband, the community’s new
directors closed down the telecentre. Cries of protest form the women,
young
people, and children fell on deaf ears.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">I have often
asked myself, what lessons have we
learned form this experience?. Chasquinet never earned a penny from its
work
with<span style=""> </span>the Pastocalle. Our relationship
with the community was based on exchange –they give us sacks of corn in
return
of our work with them. But after working for years with this community,
we got
much more than the sacks of corn in the fair exchange. We were made
richer by
the invaluable lessons we learned from the many brave women in the
community.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">In my view,
the telecentre and the Internet when they
were integrated into the community became tools for aiding community
development. They also served as instruments to unearth deeper
community
problems, those that festered and were kept hidden like rape and
incest.
However, these tools are not in themselves the forces that finally
altered the
relations of power within the community. The power to transform the
relations
in the community comes from the women’s new-found strength, their
realisation
that it is alright to demand changes for their betterment, and the
discovery of
their voices by which to assert themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">In the face
of such changes, the men felt vulnerable.
Blaming outsiders proved the easiest way for them to cope with the new
situation. Chasquinet was after all the one conducting the trainings,
and it
was after sessions began that the problems with the women also started.
Ego,
Chasquinet must be teaching the women “bad things”.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">The
telecentre remains closed and the community
directors refuse to re open it or give any information about their
plans for
it. Despite this, the women of Pastocalle travel once a month to Quito
to meet
in Chasquinet’s office and to use the computers there.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">A major
change has indeed taken place in their lives.<br>
</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><span
lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Hope this illustrates better
what I am trying to explain. It is always difficult to explain in
workds and in english :-)<br>
All the best,<br>
<br>
Karin<br>
</font><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><br>
<br>
</font>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid200410071001.i97A1k4Y011431@smtp1.adl2.internode.on.net">
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style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: navy;"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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</blockquote>
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