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Information Technology
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Village life in rural Gurgaon remains largely outside the technological revolution that has happened elsewhere. Information technology (IT) must address local needs, and the recipients must be able to use it. Computers and other hardware prohibitively expensive in rural Gurgaon. There is also no computer literacy or IT support infrastructure, making sustainability a questionable goal. Electricity is available, but supply is often erratic. Finally, while there is a growing number of Hindi and other regional language websites, the IT world is still mostly an English environment.
The Foundation is therefore focusing on the first steps that need to be taken to introduce IT to rural Gurgaon, and not on what it would take to bring these communities up to par with rural communities in developed countries. Community centres will be supplied with appropriate technologies, and will function as an information resource, a library and as a study centre.
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Communications
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Providing information and facilitating communication is crucial to empowering village communities to take an active role in their own development. In rural areas this requires both that relevant information be made available, and that it be communicated in a way that makes it useful to its recipients.
The communications department provides information about the Foundation's initiatives to the village community and to the public at large. To this end, we manage a database, documentation library, photo library and a website. Training manuals are in the process of being translated into the local language to train the village champions, volunteers and other interested groups.
The communications department also publishes a quarterly newsletter in Hindi called Vikas Patrika, in which the objectives of and benefits from the projects, acknowledgement of community role models, progress of the Foundation's interventions, and other topical issues are furnished briefly for the benefit of the village communities.
Program specific communication tools to assist implementation in villages are also developed, to ensure that information is communicated in a sensitive and effective manner. |
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