The best telecentres are local gathering places; places where people come together to talk, tell stories and share knowledge. Sure, they also come to use computers and the Internet. But it’s the talking and storytelling that bind the community together and set the tone for how the technology is used.
Examples from around the world show that telecentres empower communities in a myriad of ways. Providing a platform for civic engagement. Making links across social and economic divides. Delivering community services. Drawing youth back into community life and giving them new opportunities. Capturing community history.
The inspiring thing in all of this is that most communities don’t just accept technology “out of the box.” Rather, they bend the tools to meet their own local needs. They use computers and the internet in ways that were never imagined by their inventors.
As this grassroots innovation takes place, communities get stronger and more connected to each other. They enter into conversations about what’s needed to improve local quality of life, and experiment to see what works. They work, play and learn together as they make their telecentres come alive, arriving in the end at something useful and enduring—even if it doesn’t quite look like what they imagined in the first place.
As a community technology leader in Chile once said, “telecentres are about building social capital.” looking at the experience around the world, the desire to build that social capital is something most telecentres have in common.
“When I finish university, I plan to come back,” says 17-year-old Horváth Zsófia, a student from the small Hungarian village of Alsómocsolád. “I like living in the village very much — this is where my roots are.”
hungary: the soul of the village
Zsófia’s village is like countless others across hungary. Rural and isolated, Alsómocsolád has faced many challenges since the fall of communism. With limited resources and small populations, it’s difficult for Hungarian villages to compete with the allure of big cities. Complicating matters is the fact that Hungarian villages have no tradition of self governance; nearly half of Hungary’s villages lack their own government services.
But the transition from communism to capitalism has also led to opportunities. Since 1994, Hungary has engaged in a national experiment to deploy telecentres, known here as telecottages, throughout the country, particularly in rural villages. With more than 500 telecottages and thousands more planned, Hungary is demonstrating how telecentres
can serve as the catalyst for empowering communities.
Hungary is a nation of villages: more than 3,000 in all. Historically agricultural and self-sufficient, these villages are experiencing flux. Traditional farming jobs that once required many unskilled workers are now being automated. Skilled residents are leaving for the bigger cities. Despite these changes, there’s a passion that can be felt in Hungary’s villages—a passion for prosperity and self-sufficiency, while retaining a quality of life that simply can’t be found in places like Budapest. And they’re embracing telecentres as a tool to achieve this goal.
Much of the credit goes to Gáspár Mátyás of the European Union of Telecottage Associations, a community activist often called the father of Hungary’s telecottage movement. An energetic man with more than a passing resemblance to a middle-aged Albert Einstein, Gáspár has expanded the movement from a single telecottage in the village of Csákberény to a program that’s expanding the telecentre movement to every community, nationwide.
“Our general goal is to have a telecentre in every small community: not just each village, but at the neighbourhood level,” Gáspár explains. “The government goal is to have 3,500 access points across the country by the end of 2006.”
Here in Hungary, local residents refer to their telecentre as a telehaz (telehouse) or a telekucko (telecottage). Generally, a telehaz is larger than a telekucko. In Hungarian, the word tele also means “whole” or “complete,” which exemplifies the holistic nature of Hungarian telecottages. More than just somewhere to check e-mail, they’re the civic, social and cultural hubs of the community: vibrant places where residents get things done.
The village of Alsómocsolád was one of the first Hungarian settlements to open a telecottage. The telecottage resides in a beautiful wooden building that also houses the town hall and the community centre. With only 300 residents, Alsómocsolád lacked many local government services, including a post office. So the telecottage contracted with the national postal system to serve the community. Through this partnership, the public got access to postal services, while the telecottage got funding to support other services, such as youth technology training and small business assistance.
Key to Hungary’s success has been treating telecottages as both a network of community institutions and a national movement. Individually, telecottages might find it hard to offer certain services or sustain themselves. So they’ve begun using a national portal, ITmentor.hu, to share tools and resources built upon a common infrastructure. They also partner with each other to launch new community services that an individual telecottage might lack the resources to offer publicly.
“One of the most important things in the telecottage movement is that a telecottage cannot become sustainable on its own,” Gáspár notes. “The strongest feature is that it’s part of a network.”
Other villages, such as Kajdacs, have benefited immensely from this growing network. Located in a fertile, wine-growing region, Kajdacs and several surrounding villages have all opened telecottages. They use each other’s capacities to provide public services, train staff and secure funding. Kajdacs and the nearby village of Györköny will soon offer employment counseling via videoconferencing, thanks to a new contract with the regional government. For the first time, local residents won’t have to travel great distances to take advantage of services once available only at the county seat.
“For the life of the community, it’s very important that the telecottage be very open and host all types of programs, regardless how many people participate—including activities that aren’t focused on technology,” says telecottage director Boda János. “Then, the community will feel they have ownership of it. If it’s just a place to play on computers, they won’t feel that way.”
For villages such as Kajdacs, Alsómocsolád and hundreds of others across Hungary, the local telecentre has become the community institution around which all civic, economic and cultural activities revolve. It’s serving as the keystone for building a whole new infrastructure to provide services that will keep the community healthy and thriving.
“We believe the telecentre is the soul of the village,” Boda concludes. “So as the needs of the village evolve, the telecentre evolves with them.”
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“Our general goal is to have a telecentre in every small community – not just each village, but at the neighbourhood level,” Gáspár Explains. “The government’s goal is to have 3,500 access points across the country by the end of 2006.”
SÃo Paulo, Brazil: An Open Door to Community Development
“Since the telecentre opened, I’m no longer out on the streets,” says 13-year-old Luiz Carlos dos Santos, who lives in one of the more violent regions of São Paulo—a slum called heliópolis. “We had no leisure, no fun, no place to play and meet friends here in the community.”
“Now we have the telecentre,” he continues. “I go there every day to meet my friends and learn new things. I don’t hang out in the streets anymore.”
Located mainly in poor communities plagued by violence, the 128 telecentres run by the São Paulo city government represent an open door to community development and a safe place where people can meet, learn together and gain access to local government services.
The courses and cultural activities offered at the telecentres are a way out of the boredom that leads so many young people to involvement with drugs. Telecentres are giving them a sense of community for the first time in their lives. For Luiz and the many other kids using the telecentres, the community services provided there are giving them a new chance to complete school, find a job and make plans for the future.
GÁsÁr MÁtyÁs’ top ten telecentre tips
1. Always keep your door open for all.
2. Be the informational spirit of the community.
3. Have a presence on the net.
4. Remember that technology is only a means to an end.
5. Serve the entire community.
6. Specify your services according to local needs.
7. Give personal help to customers and visitors.
8. Make locals feel at home on your premises.
9. Form partnerships with local helpers.
10. Let the community be your judge.
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