Making Waves : NAKASEKE TELECENTRE
Stories of Participatory Communication
for Social Change
TITLE: Nakaseke Multipurpose Community Telecentre and Library Pilot Project
COUNTRY: Uganda
MAIN FOCUS: Communication and information
PLACE: Nakaseke
BENEFICIARIES: Villagers of Nakaseke and Kasangombe
PARTNERS: Uganda Telecom Ltd., The Public Libraries Board
FUNDING: UNESCO, DANIDA, IDRC, ITU, British Council
MEDIA: Computers, Internet
After the 60 kilometre drive up from Kampala the last 16 kilometres along a dusty gravel road it is quite soothing to enter the cool and spacious library hall, the largest room in the Nakaseke Multipurpose Community Telecentre and Library.
A young primary school pupil is writing an exercise in English, equipped with a huge dictionary; a secondary school student is preparing a thesis on agriculture and has borrowed a book on sustainable agriculture in the tropics; a young man has come into the library to read yesterday's newspaper a few months ago there were no newspapers in Nakaseke at all. In a corner of the library hall two young women, assistant librarians, are crouched in front of a computer. They keep track of the more than 3,000 books from the library; the service is used by an average of 45 people every day.
There are other computers for the users of the centre. Crammed together in a small room I find three computers and three young persons all very busy practising Microsoft Excel. These young people belong to the group of "volunteers", from the local community who have agreed to train the villagers in computer use after having received free computer training themselves.
Part of the training is in Internet use, e-mail and Web browsing. This training has a slightly "artificial" touch to it, since there is no connection to the Internet. The telephone line, which is supporting the telephone and the telefax machine in the centre, is not of a sufficiently good quality to support data transmission.
As I am talking to the young and ambitious people about the computer training there is a power cut and the computers go "black", the back-up power supply is not yet in place. Thus, my visit to Nakaseke does indeed testify to the necessity of the supporting infrastructure in terms of electricity and telecommunications before a rural community can be adequately equipped with computers.
On my way out through the library hall I notice that the students are still busy working the books have not stopped providing information, power cut or not!
Mona Dahms, discussing a visit to the Nakaseke MCT Pilot Project, July 1999.
Life has changed in Nakaseke, which is 64 kilometres north of the Ugandan capital Kampala, and 16 kilometres from the nearest town, Wobulenzi. Now a modern telecentre and library, complete with textbooks in English and the local language, Lugandan, serves not only the local people, but also the 24 neighbouring primary schools, four secondary schools, a primary teacher's college and the nearby hospital.
The Nakaseke Multipurpose Community Telecentre started in December 1997 as a project aimed at introducing new information services to the rural areas of Nakaseke and Kasangombe in the Luweero District of Uganda. The project aims to demonstrate that providing information and communication to rural communities catalyses the development process and results in improvement of the quality of life of rural communities. The Nakaseke Telecentre is part of a chain of five UNESCO/IDRC/ITU-supported telecentre projects initiated in Benin, Mali, Mozambique and Tanzania.
The services offered by the multipurpose telecentre includecomputer applications, training, Internet, e-mail, photocopying (the most popular), telephone, fax, a library, video shows, newspapers, audio recordings, and community listening areas.
The Nakaseke MCT and Library Pilot Project is equipped with eight computers, two telephone lines, one fax and a photocopier. A land telephone line was brought from 16 kilometres away. The building was donated by the community and renovated to an acceptable level for project work. Power was never supposed to be any problem if it were not for frequent load shedding; an inverter and a set of deep cycle batteries were, therefore, installed to provide power back up. A generator was not favoured for this purpose because of its relatively high running costs in terms of fuel.
To ensure that the core group of trainees who were selected to learn the computer programs so they could in turn train the rest of their community had the backing of their community, community members were first asked to approve the selection of the 24 people for the free-of-charge programme. The language of instruction was a combination of Lugandan and English. The trainers were a group of very young people from Uganda Connectivity, a group concerned with Internet access.
The telecentre aims at serving the entire communities of Nakaseke and Kasangombe but most particularly the following core user groups: women, youth, children, the medical community, workers, teachers, students, farmers and local leaders. The content and programming for the telecentre is therefore primarily tailored towards meeting the needs and aspirations of its core target groups.
The early users of the telecentre services were teachers and students who wanted photocopy services and a good resource centre; health officers who often need a reference library; business people with the interest of communicating with others in the capital city; women in development groups who wanted to enhance their work by getting information on videos; community members, elders and opinion leaders with the interest of reading newspapers.
Following specific requests by users, other services have been introduced like feature films every Friday afternoon, game facilities in the evenings, functional adult classes and radio listening for particular groups.
In addition, preparations commenced with UNESCO for a pilot telemedicine application within the TeleInViVo project of the European Commission, involving an inexpensive, light and mobile teleconsultancy station able to support a large range of radiological applications. Data collected from the patient by an on-site health worker using such a station will be transferred in compressed form to an expert doctor in the principal hospital in Kampala, who will be able to perform long distance diagnoses.
Nakaseke is located approximately 50 kilometres north of Kampala and 16 kilometres from Luweero. It has a population of 31,004 (1991)out of which 15,617 are women. The Nakaseke town centre itself has a population of 3,000 people.
Most of the people are Baganda, the biggest tribe in the central part of Uganda. The community is largely oral and doesn't have a credible reading culture. Until the telecentre started, there were no newspapers available, they were available at the next town which is 16 kilometres of a rough road away.
Farming in coffee, bananas, livestock raising, small-scale swamp fishing and horticulture is the main economic activity, and Kampala offers the biggest market for local produce. About 90 percent of the farmers use traditional farming methods and techniques.
There are 23 primary schools and four secondary schools in the subcounty. Nakaseke subcounty has a total enrollment of 2,935 boys and 3,329 girls in 79 classrooms according to 1999 local administration records; 59.2 percent of the Nakaseke community is literate which is largely limited to local Lugandan language. Many schools in the area have neither adequate educational facilities nor a library.A Primary Teachers' Training College has been built in Nakaseke.
Nakaseke has 7 health units including a 100-bed hospital, 5 doctors, 6 medical assistants, 23 midwives and 33 nurses. The hospital is connected to other health units by a radio. Access to clean water is possible through a network of 28 bore holes and a protected spring.
The Nakaseke MCT and Library Pilot Project has revitalised the life of this rural community in Uganda.
The community (42 villages and 3 households) is gradually understanding the importance of information, as evidenced by the growing number of people inquiring about a variety of issues. Farmers are now requesting market rates and general trends on crops they grow. The daily newspapers at the telecentre have also helped to keep the community up-to-date with what is going on in the country. The obvious purpose of the pilot project isn't to test out a new technology but rather to test a new service.
Computers in Nakaseke are no longer strange and mysterious machines. The telecentre has demystified computer communications to some extent through training and general awareness programmes. Over 6 community members have now been trained in computer communication services at the telecentre, which has led to the growth of a core group of skilled people within the local community.
There are a number of lessons learned and documented for future telecentre development. Management systems have been tried and established for sustainable telecentre operations.
The telecentre has proved that MCT in rural areas is useful for development. A good number of development groups have visited the multipurpose telecentre with a view of establishing similar ones in other areas.
The community has been at the centre of the planning and execution of the activities of the multipurpose telecentre. A local steering committee representing each of the core target groups was elected by the community to supervise the telecentre's daily activities, liase with the management committee and mobilise the community.
The telecentre is governed at the top by a management committee chaired by Uganda National Commission for UNESCO; other members include the Uganda Telecom Limited and the Public Libraries Board. The Committee is responsible for overall policy and planning, for staffing and as a liaison with international partners.
Information materials such as brochures and posters, translated in Lugandan to ensure maximum comprehension, were printed and distributed. Traditional communications systems were used during the awareness and consultation process. To ensure that the community opinion leaders send the right message to the community, "A Guide for Community" was developed, complete with illustrations and all the information that a mobiliser should know about the telecentre.
Advertisments were aired at timed intervals on "Radio Nakaseke": a simple combination of an amplifier and two low-watt loudspeakers tied up on a limb of a tree raised a few metres above the host shop.
The telephone connection was the most problematic component. The landline telephone system stopped 16 kilometres away from the telecentre site. Although the project provided for a special telecom system, it would not be envisaged in a short period. It was decided that a landline be established to run 16 kilometres to the telecentre. The plan provided limited voice connection to the telecentre, but data application has remained difficult to get through because of the poor quality of the telephone line.
Internet and e-mail are the least utilised services at the multipurpose telecentre. People do not use the Internet because it is not yet relevant to their daily life; there is a critical need to develop content specifically for Ugandans. Telecentres should not be looked upon only as places to make a phone call or make photocopies. There is a need to tailor smart attractions for users and get them interested in the new services with a mix of information materials, both print and electronic.
According to Mona Dahms, telephone and photocopying are the only services offered by Nakaseke MCT which can be used by the "target population", the "uneducated" farmers who constitute the majority of the community population. Thus, a reflection on just who the actual beneficiaries are of the telecentre seems justified, she adds.
Tracing How Far We Have Come by Meddie Mayanja, Project Officer, Uganda National Commission for UNESCO.
Nakaseke TelecentreWeb site.
Other Web pages on Nakaseke Telecentre and ICTs in Uganda include Acacia project and Richard Fuchs' Lemonade Report.
For Educated People Only. Reflections on a Visit to Two Multipurpose Community Telecentres in Uganda by Mona Dahms, in Telecentre Evaluation IDRC, 1999.
- Log in to post comments