An Attempt to Socialize the Telelac Experiment

Karen Delgadillo Poepsel writes this personal reflection on the earliest stages of the Telelac project in order to record a project profile of this newly launched initiative as framework for later information and reflection as the project grows. She professes that at the outset of the project she wondered: "what use is all this paraphernalia of cyber communication to the people I bump into everyday on the street, in the schools or in the fields, at the bus stop, the store or the supermarket, in a country like Ecuador, or in any other country on this continent that still bears the scars of poverty and so much poorly distributed wealth, with its people of so many cultures and colors, with its natural diversity besieged by commercial exploitation?"


As a result of this query, she launched the Chasquinet experiment, in cooperation with other individuals working with information and communication technology (ICT) tools for poverty reduction and social policy change. Combined with the Telelac project, which focuses on the creation of telecentres from strategic, participatory, and evaluative perspectives, and linked to others working internationally on telecentres, the author expresses collective principles, collective learning, and collective questioning of the use of internet technology as a communication tool for development.

The author discusses, in the project's inception, a horizontal online debate consisting of developing a conceptual framework, a self-diagnosis, the definition of needs and priorities, and the methodological conception that resulted in the formation of the Telelac project. Specifically, at the outset of the project, through an online questionnaire of semi-structured questions relating mainly to the expectations of telecentre operators and researchers and a supplementary questionnaire on the sector's development needs, the initiators of Telelac discovered that there is an enormous variety and wealth of experience with telecentres, including the following kinds: the basic telecentre, those that are operated independently by their respective owners but are interconnected and coordinated centrally, civic telecentres, cybercafes, and multiple-use community telecentres.

The analysis of results or "pre-diagnosis" includes the following:

• First, what these telecentres had in common was a physical space where the public could have access to information and communication technologies.
• Secondly, the telecentres offer a combination of services ranging from basic telephone service and e-mail to full connectivity with the internet and the world wide web.
• Third, the telecentres are part of a project for communication or training for specific social sectors.
• Fourth, the telecentres grew out of more or less spontaneous experiments and then found it necessary to relate with other, similar experiments.
• Fifth, in certain indigenous communities, the telecentres are in a chain of communication with community radio, reinforcing intercultural relations and bilingualism.

According to the author, the pre-diagnosis project informed multiple aspects of the Telelac project. It showed that telecentres are technological adaptations in search of solutions to people's concrete needs. As participatory research, the pre-diagnosis process itself modelled the collective effort of trying to start a communication movement.

These conclusions resulted in building adaptive models of telecentres with improved management and with financing for start up equipment costs through either external cooperating agencies or government loans.
Telelac project successes include: improved infrastructure and services; a level of social commitment to communities; mutual learning in which technical experts are learning about social issues, as well as learning from the social commitment of people working on community telecentres; and the promotion of telecentres by their users. However, areas in need of work in telecentre design and function include: supporting women and indigenous youth to use the internet, supplying job information and training to marginalised children, serving to increase self esteem, breaking down barriers to technology use, giving support to daily problem solving, serving as a sales channel for community products, and helping detect problems afflicting women in the communities.

From a meeting in Papallacta, Ecuador, to develop strategies for action in ongoing project analysis and expansion, the author describes the following results: a redesign of the website; a refinement of definitions and configurations of telecentres as business projects; planning of low cost technologies usage to enable people of various economic levels to influence telecommunications; a strategy of creating "collective space for operational learning" to strengthen service and training modules for distance training for management; development of a instruments for evaluation and monitoring of the work of telecentres; and a system of strategic alliances.

The meeting resulted in the Manifesto of Papallacta, a document of principles and values of web development as a basis for regulatory policies and access which addresses:
"[d]emocratising communications and access to them..." The virtual community "somos@telecentro," according to the article, was established as a proponent of the mandate to democratise.

The author cites successes and challenges in carrying forward the strategic plans:

• A virtual community and network of Latin American and Caribbean telecentres has been established with a platform for information and resource exchange.
• A challenge of that community is that not everyone has developed an internet culture, and some are reluctant to participate both because of the cultural norm of face-to-face communication and because of self-consciousness about low levels of education in using an information exchange medium that is writing based.
• Resource compilations including telecentre histories have begun and are envisioned to include technical support workshops online and evaluation and monitoring tools online.
• Bridges to other initiatives are also in process to overcome isolation.

Challenging questions have emerged in the Telelac process including:

• how to build a cooperative network and finance it;
• how to link Telelac to other global processes and build a global telecentre portal as a communication platform for others to benefit from experience;
• how to put together a lobby group that will influence policies for access to ICTs; and
• how to develop "a culture of support, collaboration and promotion for the growth of telecenters, starting with the human individual and integrating the family, the workplace, the community, the country, assuming personal and institutional responsibilities so as to bring about integral change..."

In her conclusion, Karin Delgadillo Poepsel cites future needs for cooperation and collaboration for the creation of synergistic processes that have impact on development and social change.