Nepal ICTs Project - Nepal

COPPADES' focus in this project is helping bridge the digital divide by bringing needed ICT skills and opportunities to the local level in underprivileged areas of Nepal. Although supplying equipment is a key component of the programme, a strong emphasis is placed on providing both training for computer teachers and follow-up support for participating schools and communities.

Initially, COPPADES is focussing on 40 secondary and high schools (where students are between the ages of 14 and 20) in 9 districts in the eastern, central, western and far western hill regions of Nepal; it hopes to expand the project to elementary school students. The community is also addressed through the programme, which requires schools to enable public access to the computers after school hours or when the students are not using them. The idea is to contribute to the skills development of rural youth, school drop-outs, and recent graduates who may not otherwise be able to afford transportation to, or use of, urban e-centres.

COPPADES as a partner with World Computer Exchange (WCE) helps recruit schools in Nepal that serve the poor. It secures signed agreements with these schools,delivers the computers to the participating schools from the port of entry, ensures that schools are using the computers for students during each school day and providing community access to the computers, helps arrange for the maintenance and security of the computers in the schools, facilitatates payment of local Internet access and phone service costs, and attracts local press coverage for donating and volunteering companies.

To carry out these activities, COPPADES relies on networking. The strategy was initiated by forming a consortium of NGOs working in Nepal to ensure that participating schools receive the equipment after it has been shipped to a central port by WCE, and then to guide schools as they prepare classrooms for computer use (providing sufficient power plugs and cementing the floor, for example). Once the equipment is in place, training is a priority; the focus is on developing skill within the staff (teacher) body rather than bringing in outside experts. Each school is asked to develop a sustainability strategy, which might involve charging fees for the services they provide to the community. Maintenance support is provided by COPPADES and other collaborating NGOs for at least one year until a detailed plan is developed in this regard.

Technology, Youth.

Organisers say that most of these communities have seen computers only in photographs; even in areas where there are computers, use is limited to those with higher incomes. Urban areas and places with better opportunities for employment and income generation possibilities are already starting to use computers in their daily businesses. Most poor and rural people are unable to compete in this growing job market, which risks contributing to their further marginalisation. In this sense, COPPADES claims, the rapid growth of information technology has brought possibilities as well as threats to under-developed societies. Nepal is faced with the challenge of joining the effort of bringing ICTs to the world's majority.

As part of the Nepal ICTs project, approximately 20,000 male and female students and community youth, 7 NGOs, and 5 women and poorest-owned rural microcredit organisations have acquired computer training and are using computer applications for their learning and business management. In the second phase of the project in 2004 COPPADES plans to bring access to and skill in computers and ICTs to 30,000 additional community people in rural and underprivileged parts of the country.

The mission of COPPADES is "to promote organisational activities among women and the discriminated groups by building up awareness among them and empowering them through economic self-dependence". WCE is a non-profit international educational organisation based in the USA that gathers computers, sister-schools, and online support volunteers in 35 cities in Europe and North America. WCEships tested Pentium and Power Mac computers to connect youth to the Internet in Africa, Asia, and Latin America; volunteers provide help in content development, technology, and telecentre management. Click here for a Programme Description. The UK-based non-profit Computer Aid International supplies quality refurbished Pentium computers to non-profit organisations in developing countries.