“Nenasala Mobile Library”
Information & Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) under the e-Sri Lanka initiative launched ‘Nenasala Sakmana’ (mobile telecentre library) on 16th June 2009. Main objective of the respective project is to empower the rural community with benefits of ICT. “Nenasala Mobile Library” was implemented with the intention of expanding the ICT facilities among rural community.
This project was launched in Suriyawewa, a divisional secretariat situated in Southern part of Sri Lanka. Suriyawewa consist with 21 villages and in its initial stage this project will facilitate only 10 selected villages in the divisional secretariat. Agriculture is the main occupation of the people of this area. Community of this area has poor access to ICT facilities and resources. Also they have financial difficulties in accessing the ICT and they lack ICT knowledge. Since ICT facilities are not available in their rural villages, they have to come to the town to get the ICT facilities. They have financial difficulties and they have to spend lot of time in traveling to the town. Therefore, they were further constrained in obtaining the benefits of ICT.
Therefore, we (Nenasala in Suriyawewa), identified these difficulties faced by the community in our area and convinced that we, as a Nenasala has a responsibility to strengthen the ICT in our area. Therefore, with the financial aid and guidance provided by ICTA, we launched Nenasala mobile library to facilitate the community in Suriyawewa with the new advancements of ICT. We will travel to villages with our mobile library to help our community with the followings:
1) Providing agricultural information and advanced technology and methods for farmers
2) Providing educational information for students
3) Providing information on new employment opportunities available for youth
4) Awareness building among community on important government information and facilities
5) Providing online access to government information and publications

We are intending to further develop this concept and provide a better service to the community in future as well.