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Do not rush! Talk to the community people to find their information requirement
Last five days I was at kurigram, a remote district of Bangladesh in monitoring and evaluation visit. PASS, a local NGO established a telecentre in this area with the technical assistance of D.Net. During M&E visit usually I meet community people to know quality of service delivery and evaluate information need of the community. I also move door to door with infomediaries and mobile ladies. One of my responsibilities is to respond infomediaries inquiries related to telecentre services. During this visit I got two queries from infomediaries. Those were why the community people don’t understand the importance of information and why they are not interested to take services from telecentre? I told them that I will give my feed back at the end of my visit.
While doing regular task I was searching answer of their quiries and suddenly I got them. During third day of my visit I was talking to a village woman about telecenter’s services. After hearing everything she told me that if she faces any problem she will visit our telecentre. Her mother-in-law was also there and listening to me. Suddenly the old lady said, “We have no problem then why we will visit your telecentre?” Her statement again reminds me those two queries that were raised by the infomediaries.
I was also interested to know the reason why people are not willingly visiting our telecentres. I spend the whole day with the community people and asked them about their problem. While talking with them I had a very interesting experience.
When I asked them about their daily information need, they replied that they do not have any. But after spending some time, when I became intimate with them they shared their problems with me. I found three reasons behind not sharing their problems with the infomediaries at the first meeting. They are:
1. Community people are not aware about their livelihood problems. For example, a coconut tree is not giving any coconut. It can be a disease and might have solution. People are not ready to believe that. To them only human being and animals have diseases not the trees.
2. Telecentre initiative is very new to the community people. They are use to with NGOs and their service but not telecenters. So telecenters are like NGO to them. They do not understand the power of information. Rural IT illiterate and print disables people are not ready to absorb this idea. In fact in many cases we are struggling to convince highly educated and techno users about the effectiveness of telecentres. Many of them do not believe that access to information can change livelihood of poor people.
3. Community people are shy to share their livelihood problems with a stranger. At first infomediaries should earn their credibility through general discussion and providing service identifying their real need. If they can convince community people only then they will share their problems with the infomediaries and depends on telecentre’s service.
These were my feedback to the infomediary’s query and also a great lesson for me.
"SUBMITTED AS ENTRY TO THE TELECENTRE.ORG BLOG CONTEST"
While doing regular task I was searching answer of their quiries and suddenly I got them. During third day of my visit I was talking to a village woman about telecenter’s services. After hearing everything she told me that if she faces any problem she will visit our telecentre. Her mother-in-law was also there and listening to me. Suddenly the old lady said, “We have no problem then why we will visit your telecentre?” Her statement again reminds me those two queries that were raised by the infomediaries.
I was also interested to know the reason why people are not willingly visiting our telecentres. I spend the whole day with the community people and asked them about their problem. While talking with them I had a very interesting experience.
When I asked them about their daily information need, they replied that they do not have any. But after spending some time, when I became intimate with them they shared their problems with me. I found three reasons behind not sharing their problems with the infomediaries at the first meeting. They are:
1. Community people are not aware about their livelihood problems. For example, a coconut tree is not giving any coconut. It can be a disease and might have solution. People are not ready to believe that. To them only human being and animals have diseases not the trees.
2. Telecentre initiative is very new to the community people. They are use to with NGOs and their service but not telecenters. So telecenters are like NGO to them. They do not understand the power of information. Rural IT illiterate and print disables people are not ready to absorb this idea. In fact in many cases we are struggling to convince highly educated and techno users about the effectiveness of telecentres. Many of them do not believe that access to information can change livelihood of poor people.
3. Community people are shy to share their livelihood problems with a stranger. At first infomediaries should earn their credibility through general discussion and providing service identifying their real need. If they can convince community people only then they will share their problems with the infomediaries and depends on telecentre’s service.
These were my feedback to the infomediary’s query and also a great lesson for me.
"SUBMITTED AS ENTRY TO THE TELECENTRE.ORG BLOG CONTEST"
Comment
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Comment by DR. SYED MD. ZAINUL ABEDIN on March 6, 2010 at 5:01am -
About 8 months have passed since you visited your work area in Kurigram.Have you noticed any change in attitude of your clientele afterward? If any positive change has taken place by now,you may investigate the reasons behind the change and plan your strategy for your future program.
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Comment by DR. SYED MD. ZAINUL ABEDIN on March 6, 2010 at 4:48am
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Better late than never! I congratulate Fatema Begum Labony for winning a prize in the blog contest.I am very happy to note that she is doing great in this site through her consistent effort.Hope she will contribute more for furthering telecentre movement.
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Comment by Saud Md. Munwar on July 27, 2009 at 4:01am -
It is indeed an amazing observation and an example, still much of the peoples of the villages are not yet cautious of the benefits of the telecentres, but hopefully together with all the great concerned Initiators, Bangladesh and the Rural Initiatives of development shall see the LIGHT very soon.
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Comment by M. Ataur Rahman on June 23, 2009 at 11:35am -
Congratulation..... for the winning the contest....................Great!!!
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Comment by Fatema Begum Labony on May 31, 2009 at 1:26am -
Hi Robinson, Thank you for sharing your experience. Telecentres can also select infomediay from the community. It may help but rushing things always make it worst.
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Comment by ROBINSON WIKANA MUKANGAYI on May 26, 2009 at 6:24pm -
Hi Fatema,
It is a fact that rushing things with the hope of delivering is a common phenomenon with many organizations and individuals; but as you have put it clearly the end-user who in this case is the public or the community and all stakeholders must be involved to identify their needs, objectives and many other facts.
In some cases, some Telecentres have 'volunteers'/ team from the community who helps to introduce the TC to the community, gathering information through interviews, way of life, observations, and policies. The same group helps interpret the intention of the TC to the community. Also, steering committees that include the community members can be used to help identify this needs. All can be done while doing the baseline survey.
Robinson Wikana Mukangayi
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Comment by Md. Saiful Islam on May 26, 2009 at 5:30pm -
Nice observation................obviously facilitation and creating a homely environment is a good point to finding out facts & information from rural people. One more point to be added regarding information sharing with the poor.
Actually .........many interviewers/professionals/high or low profiles use to get feed backs/information from that side. Lastly, they (Interviewees) even do not know what the fate of their knowledge / informationon sharing was.
This kinds of exploiting information make them shaking easily to share with you.
(It is all along my personal opinion).
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