Silvia and Sanjaya's visit to Bhadrak

June 2005. During my field visit in Bhadrak I have been accompanied by UNV Sanjaya Kumar Mohanti, who monitors 34 IT Kiosks in three districts which are in Bhadrak, Kendraparha and Jaipur. He acts as IT Facilitator and supervises around 30 Volunteers in the 3 districts. A number of 10 Local NGOs are involved in ICT in the Bhadrak District, creating a network through IT Kiosks in order to exchange information about their activities - such as helping farmers with their productions, be updated with products prices, and improve their skills.
They are able to cover a population of 5000, including women.
In Kendraparha Sanjaya reports a successful story about the importance of reaching local villagers. Among the IT kiosks that he monitors, one has specifically created a centre called “ TARAS ” with the purpose of providing information particularly on agriculture. In the village where this Centre is available, two persons - Mr Srikanta Nayak and Sashibhusan Das, togheter with other team-mates - have developed their income generating activities after accessing agricultural information on mushrooms culture, dairy products (milk/cheese), and honey farms.
After the initial production that lasted 3 months they have started to give employment to other villagers because their production has been quite successful.
I have spoken with one of the women present that day. She belongs to the SHGW which acts under a government scheme providing to groups of 10/20 women credit to invest in their activities. This woman at the conference (she is among other pupils) needs to develop her accountancy skills.
Coming to this IT Kiosk means she is not only improving her personal skills but she will share her knowledge with her SHGW group of around 20 female persons. Computer training for literate women is also going to be developed, since they are in an initial phase with problems such as connectivity, electricity power down etc.. The scope and coordination is quite modest. Some new partners are also supporting this ICT development in Orissa like the NASSCOM Foundation, the Bank Sector (NABARD), MSSRF Foundation and government agencies.

Silvia Amato (UNV Program Officer in Orissa)

 

back to > "Voices from the Field" page