Nakaseke Community Multimedia Centre (CMC) - Uganda

The programme consists in a telecentre in Uganda that offers:

• Information services including a library, community information centre, and a book box programme for schools. The latter inititiative facilitates the donation of books to rural schools that have no libraries. In addition, school twinning allows for the sharing of teaching and learning experiences between urban and rural schools.
• ICT training that includes computer applications training programmmes for members of the community including educators, health workers, local leaders, and students
• Communication services such as telephone, fax, e-mail, internet, and produce price postings
• The Functional Adult Literacy initiative and the Distance Education Programme (in association with Makerere University Institute of Adult and Continuing Education), which offer courses in the English language and project planning and management
• Educational videos shown at schools, in the community, and in outlying villages. The subjects of these programmes include household and public health, child and human rights, modern farming techniques, reproductive health, life skills for youth, and career guidance
• Secretarial services including typesetting, photocopying, and scanning for the professional community
• The building of indigenous knowledge through the generation (collection, documentation, storage, packaging, and dissemination) of local knowledge on household health, mother-child health, nutrition, agriculture, medicine, and culture.

Education, Technology, Agriculture, Health.

The programme's accomplishments are as follows:

• Farmers are now able market their produce in prime-price markets in Kampala City (64 kilometers away). They seek information on prices from the telecentre in newspapers and other material. The telephone is used to arrange for purchase of input and goods. Prior to the establishment of the telecentre, travelling traders were the only source of income and information; they offered minimum prices at the farm gate.
• There are now four computer schools. In addition, other schools have included computer training in their curricula.
• National Operators (UTL & MTN) have provided public phones, enabling telephone use to increase. In 1999, there was 1 telephone line in the sub-county - at the telecentre. Now there are 40 subscribers on land lines and 30 cellular phone owners.
• Through programmes such as Open Learning Centres, Community Information Centres, study tours, and expert lectures, traders and farmers are able to use telecommunication services to carry out business with distant business partners.
• Women have gained skills from exposure to other women from distant places in areas like health and entreprenuership. Youth have been motivated to pursue work as farmers and traders, in part through exposure to education that works through entertainment.
• Partnerships and networking among NGOs, government agencies, and those who work in the private sector have been fostered through the information resource centre that MCT provides. For example, the Nakaseke MCT is now associated with two local telecentres - Buwama and Nabweru (established by the IDRC - ACACIA project) - and community radios stations in Uganda - Apac and Kagadi.
• The Telemedicine programme at Nakaseke Hospital has allowed for tele-consultancy with the national referral hospital and other hospitals abroad (see The Telemedicine TeleInViVo Initiative Programme Description).
• Schools have registered better performance in Primary Leaving Examinations as a result of the increased library use that the MCT provides.
• MCT influenced the the formulation of the government's ICT for Development policy framework, which provides for rural, egalitarian provision of information and communication facilities nationally. The regulatory body, Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has followed up on the MCT initiative by creating a Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF) aimed at accessing communication services in remote communities
• MCT has trained over 100 people in computer applications. To date, 30 have acquired jobs at the district capital. 10 are operating small businesses in ICT-related services. 7 have moved to city to seek employment. Professionals like health workers and teachers who work work in the sub-county now utilise PC computers.