Malvar Community eCenter (CeC), a telecentre based in Batangas, Philippines, has been declared the winner of a contest organized by Telecentre.org Foundation (TCF) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to support their joint Telecentre Women: Digital Literacy Campaign. The contest was open to all telecentres conducting digital literacy training for women from April 7, 2011 to September 1, 2012. A total of 221 organizations and telecentres from 65 countries participated in the contest, submitting verifiable reports of the digital literacy training for women they conducted during the contest period. TCF tallied and verified the reports, which showed that Malvar Community e-Center had trained the most women. ITU will now award the Malvar Community eCenter 15,000 Swiss Francs worth of ICT equipment for its telecentre.

Malvar CeC, was able to train a total of 528 women in basic digital literacy courses during the contest period. Of the total, a vast majority (316 or 60%) admitted that the training was their first introduction to the Internet. Trainees came from all walks of life–from students to public and private sector employees, to the unemployed, to retired senior citizens.

Upon hearing that they had won the contest, Malvar CeC Manager Linda Balbuena said, “Competing with the world’s telecentres is really daunting and quite intimidating. But we gave it our best shot and we won! We, at the Malvar Community eCenter are all thrilled and exhilarated! With the prize equipment, we think of how much easier it will be for us to reach more women in remote areas and teach them basic computer literacy. Thanks and more power to Telecentre.org. Foundation and ITU!”

Malvar Municipal Mayor Carlito Reyes, who was instrumental in the establishment of the government-supported telecentre, also expressed his delight at the win, saying, “I am very happy and honored to learn that our Community eCenter won the contest of training the most women to become digitally literate. It is totally remarkable and amazing that we won in an international competition like this.”

The Telecentre Women: Digital Literacy Campaign target  is to reach 1 million women.  To learn more and participate in the campaign, please visit http://women.telecentre.org.