Nabanna Information Network for Rural Women

According to organisers, women in many rural and semi-rural areas of Bengal do not have structured local communication networks that promote access to information or provide spaces for sharing information and knowledge. As a result, many women do not know how to or are not able to meet even basic needs. Thus, in the initial phases of Nabanna's development, the key focus was on the use of ICTs to enable women in Bengal to build their own local information network. The rationale behind this process was that individual women who had direct access to the tools they need would share their knowledge and skills with others who do not, thus spreading information and reaching beyond the individual. By combining technological and social networks Nabanna, worked to reach a large number of women and provide local collection and diffusion of information and knowledge.

The central focus of this element of Nabanna's early work in Baduria involved teaching a core group of 60 "information agents" to plan and create content - trawled from the internet or locally created. They then discussed and exchanged it with other women through a range of media that included computers, the internet, face-to-face meetings, and a print newspaper. Each information agent set up and managed an information group of 10 women in her own neighbourhood. These groups met once a week to discuss issues that impact their own lives and communities (such as livelihood, agriculture, health, education, and wisdom) and to assess the information and skills they already possess and those they wish to acquire and develop.

Specifically, to enable skills development, 3 ICT centres were set up in Baduria, Jagannathpur, and Arbelia. The women were taught basic computer skills and how to use MS Office and desktop publishing (DTP) applications. They learned data input and how to search for content in eNRICH, a programme with archival and retrieval properties. Nabanna's ultimate goal was to build knowledge modules that will be a database of localised best practices to help women solve local problems. To ensure efficient circulation of eNRICH contents, organisers published a community newspaper and set up bulletin boards.

Change Initiatives developed a participatory rural appraisal tool (PRA) that involved asking participants to maintain diaries on their lives. These diaries were a tool for needs assessment, in addition to being a vehicle for self-expression (the contents were published in Nabanna's community newspaper). In addition, the diary contents helped Change Initiatives develop modules for the information sharing groups described above. The results of the discussions were recorded and researched for development of an adequate platform for eNRICH. The internet has also been strategically used in the project to carry out action research work. In the early stages of the project, research advisors at the London School of Economics and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) offered organisers research advice through an interactive website. Based on this guidance, Change Initiatives looked at particular uses of the internet and particular meanings of empowerment. It focused on actual processes, asking questions such as: How does the internet fit into the many different ways people pass along information about health and livelihood (by word of mouth, through health systems, alongside rituals and "superstitions")?

The research undertaken by Change Initiatives demonstrated that better access to ICT tools could speed up development. But lack of electricity and connectivity in the remote areas of India makes it impossible for people to access ICT. Thus, the project evolved so that, instead of focusing on static telecentres, Change Initiatives started using laptops in 2 villages, Ghoragacha and Madandanga in Nadia, on a regular basis to disseminate information. After that a mobile information kiosk that would travel from one village to another was developed. But the problem of electricity and connectivity remained unsolved. Thus, in mid-2007, Change Initiatives established contact with West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency (WBREDA), which had developed a solar-rickshaw van for selling diesel in villages. This solar van opened up an avenue for mobile telecentres - it was possible to take ICT tools to villages without any concern for continuous availability of power. This is how the concept of Telecentre on Wheels (TOW) was born. TOW is a customised tricycle (rickshaw) equipped with a solar panel and necessary hardware, such as a laptop computer, printer, power panels, facilities for digital photography, etc.

After customisation and testing, TOW was formally launched in November 2007, and is being tested in 4 villages, Ghoragacha, Madandanga, Kantabelia, and Teligacha, in Bengal's Nadia district. A resource person and selected community members from each village were trained so they could use TOW to help villagers access public information on health and hygiene, literacy, adult education, agriculture, human rights, and civil laws in the local language, Bengali. TOW aims to develop a financially sustainable model by providing various ICT-enabled services and by helping local women to sell their products. The initiative also builds up a digital archive of local content on issues concerning women, youth, and rural livelihoods that allows villagers to access relevant information at their doorstep. Using ethnographic action research (EAR) techniques, this project determines local needs and examines the transformation in village life through ICT.

Another major change as Nabanna has been refined over the years is in the network concept. The proposal is to bring not only those who are involved with ICTs but also those women who participate in Nabanna's other income-generating activities into the Nabanna network. As of February 2009, organisers are setting up a website for all of them, which will have information on women's empowerment. In this way, they believe, it will be possible to reach out to more women.

Women, Economic Development, Technology.

The effort to develop this local-language information system began in August 2002, when Change Initiatives entered a UNESCO grant competition, conducted on the internet to locate partners for the project "Empowering the Underprivileged through the Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)". Under UNESCO's aegis, Change Initiatives began discussions with the researchers referenced above and with National Informatics Centre (NIC), which agreed to provide the web interface eNRICH. The pilot project took off in February 2003.

Organisers say that Nabanna's biggest achievement to date is having instilled a sense of personal empowerment among the beneficiaries. Organisers claim that the Nabanna newspaper, with a circulation of 2,000, has reached out to a large section of the local community to raise awareness about Nabanna and the activities of women. "The community has found that a more empowered, knowledgeable and confident woman empowers her society by facilitating the process of collective decision-making at the family level and in the community." As a result, organisers suggest, younger women feel they are able to approach the job market with greater confidence. There has also been solidarity as the women learn computers together at the ICT centre - they often discuss their problems, creating a sense of unity among them and also bringing forth their dormant leadership qualities. Trainees are taking their skills back to the regional centres; for instance, one of the trainees of Baduria ICT centre had managed the Arbelia centre.

Nabanna was the Inaugural Gender and ICT Award Winner in the category Community or Individual Advocacy and Networking. Click here to read more.