Project Vikas
Village Information Knowledge
And Skills
Contributed
by Sri. N.Krishnaswamy, Founder Trustee, Vidya Vrikshah Trust, Chennai,
India.
Introduction
In proposing and promoting the undoubted power and potential of Information
Technology in the service of socio-economic development of the disadvantaged,
it is important firstly, to maintain a sharp focus on methodologies that
can effectively contribute to their primary needs in respect of literacy,
education, health, disability-training and employment-related skills.
Secondly, IT-based solutions must come to them in their mother tongue.
Thirdly, the solutions must come to them at low or no cost.
Implementation of such solutions must further be guided by the following
principles.
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The solutions
must, as far as possible, proceed from an integrated design approach, but
on a modular structure, lending itself to adaptation to a variety of local
needs and priorities.
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The modules
must enable easy, intuitive and inter-active computer use in the mother
tongue by all, young or old, literate or illiterate, able or disabled.
They must admit of use of inexpensive assistive devices to enable
use by the disabled, and use by the blind among the disabled implies that
the modules must be voice-enabled.
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While
the modules would each address a single objective, they must be combined
appropriately within single programs, in ways that are seen to be of cumulative
value and importance to the people in their daily lives. A literacy module
that teaches how to read and write, along with a health module that
teaches the right community and personal health practices for women and
children, would make both more effective when combined in a single program
than when presented in separate programs.
Likewise an education module and a skills training module with an
income earning potential, would prove more effective in combination than
when in separate programs. This program enrichment or what may be called
a "broad-band" approach, of combining multiple related modules and addressing
multiple related objectives, would incidentally mean better returns on
the same infrastructure investments.
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Training
in the use of the modules should be handled by a local facilitator, who
should be provided with a computer, with the relevant software modules
and also special training in their effective use of both the hardware and
software. The role of participants in training programs must not be limited
to passive observation of screen output, but should involve
their inter-active use of paper-pencil and keyboard for their
responses. The interaction should thus be three-way, between facilitator,
computer and participant.
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The facilitator
and required facilities should be found from local resources, both governmental
and non-governmental. Considering that Governmental structures already
have the widest reach among the people in terms of the spread of both facilitators
and facilities, it makes sense to invest in low cost enhancement of the
effectiveness of both with the new methodology.
-
This will
involve added cost on a computer and training, but in respect of existing
Government institutions, this may be only a small marginal and easily manageable
addition in relation to existing staff and infrastructure costs, which
are often substantial and do not yield commensurate results. All this is
also true, though on a much smaller scale, of the non-governmental institutions.
There would also be the possibility that can be actively pursued of getting
these items contributed as donations.
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What this
means is that the large number of cutting edge grass root functionaries
? teachers, health workers, welfare workers, volunteers etc. must be trained
and equipped through the use of the right Information Technology tools
to become far more effective facilitators than they are today, in the delivery
of the whole range of educational and social welfare services. The whole
concept is tied to the idea that knowledge dissemination and empowering
small groups to make the right judgements in respect of their lives, would
constitute the central determinant of welfare in society.
No organization, governmental or non-governmental, will find it difficult
to see and accept the logic of the foregoing principles. Many organizations
are today working in a small way with a few IT solutions, some of them
good, but are largely "narrow-band" in terms of approach and method.
One critical limitation with all of them is that they have not been able
find or develop Indian Language software tools necessary for developing
the IT based training modules operating in local languages.
The objective of this paper is to bring to the notice of all organizations
that a complete and significant IT solution, comprised of both the development
tools and the training application modules developed with these tools,
are available here and now, free for use by anyone for use by any person
or organization committed to the socio-economic development objectives
mentioned at the outset. The tools are provided in a Multi-lingual
Software Package from the Computer Science Department of the Indian Institute
of Technology Madras, and the Application Modules in a software suite
from Vidya Vrikshah, an NGO based in Chennai.
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This
section has been contributed by Smt. Vidya Shankar, Chair-Person, Relief
Foundation, Chennai: A community-based Holistic Welfare Project with special
emphasis on Women and Welfare of Children in rural areas.
Project Vikas
Project Vikas envisages a new, innovative, path-breaking and holistic,
community-based welfare project with special emphasis on women and children
in rural areas. It proceeds from a recognition of the fact that welfare
programs administered and supported by Government, though substantial
in their financial outlays and extensive in their geographic and organizational
reach, suffer important weaknesses in the organization and methods
at their cutting edge public interface These are reflected in ineffective
person to person communication, on the part of grass root level workers,
resulting in turn, in inadequate response and involvement from the targeted
groups. The results in terms of quality and reach
of critical welfare components like literacy, education, health and
hygiene, socio-economic benefits etc., are consequently not commensurate
with the levels of effort and investment in programs in these areas. On
a smaller scale, this is true of the efforts of many NGOs as well.
Relief Foundation is a Chennai based NGO that has done extensive
work with women and children in the villages and village level teachers,
health workers, community leaders and program sponsors from Industry and
Commerce, and service volunteers. Relief Foundation has initiAted
pioneering approaches in cross-sectoral cooperation and in networking NGOs
to give them added strength and direction to welfare causes.. It has launched
innovative approaches to bring protection succour and a social healing
touch to orphans, runaway children, deserted children, school dropouts,
and children on the fringe of lives of begging, delinquency and crime.
In recognition of this, Relief Foundation has been assigned important responsibilities
in these areas of activity by the Department of Social Defence, Government
of Tamilnadu. In the light of its extensive many-sided field experience,
Relief Foundation is now convinced that in the pursuit of welfare programs,
we now need new and holistic strategies calling
for involvement in and support from all the critical segments of society,
as set out in this proposal.
Conceptual
Approach
Any
holistic approach to social welfare programs for the People must flow from
intelligent mobilization and utilization of resources and support potentials
of the Market and State Sectors. Our approach is therefore to:
-
TAP the
employment and training potential of the institutions of Industry
& Commerce (the Market Sector) and also the resources they deploy for
social causes.
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LEVERAGE
the organizational and financial resources allocated by governments (the
State Sector) for social welfare programs, especially for women and children
and specially those relating to Literacy,Education,Training, Employment
and Health.
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MOBILIZE
the support and involvement of the People in implementation of welfare
programs, and specifically raise village level leadership and organizations
to maintain and sustain all these programs. The motive force for progress
must ultimately spring from every mother, teacher and service functionary
or volunteer from every home, school and community centre in the villages.
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ENHANCE
the quality and extend the reach of existing welfare institutions , services
and programs, by enhancing the knowledge and skills of the service functionaries
at the cutting edge, especially by exploiting the potential and power of
Information Technology..
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Implementation
Approach
The
effort to enhance quality and extend reach of critical services
(Item-4 above) will concentrate on the following :
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Volunteers
to handle Literacy programs especially addressed to women
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Teachers
in village schools in respect of all Educational activities.
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Volunteers
from different professions to handle Training of village youth in new skills
for new types of rural employment and entrepreneurship in areas like farm
products, food industries, social forestry, horticulture, animal husbandry
etc.
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Village
Health Workers and Volunteers handling all Health related programs, especially
for women and children and especially those directed to the prevention
of disease and disability and rehabilitating the disabled through programs
of literacy, education and training..
These personnel will be provided with and trained in the use of computers
with specially designed, Tamil-based content material relevant to the programs
handled by them. Striking results may be expected to flow from the exposure
of both functionaries and beneficiaries to the full power of IT-bases skills
and methodologies, with particular reference a remarkable set of solutions
developed by our Chennai based partner-NGO, Vidya Vrikshah, with
the support of the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai. This approach
has been field tested and found to hold significant promise.
This proposal envisages an initial two-stage program as follows
Stage
I : A Pilot Project lasting 6 months, to demonstrate and establish the
viability and effectiveness of this approach, in a selected village
in Tamilnadu.
Stage
II : Expanding the Pilot Project into a wider Program cover
more villages.
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Pilot
Project Implementation
Relief
Foundation has initiated implementation of the Pilot Project, with
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Selection
of one village, Illalur, in Kanchipuram District, where the Project is
being implemented.
-
Defining
the specific programs to be addressed and defining the activity structure
and time-table of the activities.
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Identifying
the functionaries and volunteers who will spearhead the program activities
in their defined areas of responsibility in the village.
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Procuring
two computers with relevant software for the village and positioning them,
one in a school and the other in a community centre in each village.
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Arranging
with our partner-NGO, Vidya Vrikshah to
Train
the above functionaries and volunteers in the use of computers with special
local language-based content for all welfare programs.
Design
and develop the special local language-based content.
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Implementing
the Project in the village with the help of our partner-NGO, Mentors Trust.
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Application modules
developed by Vidya Vrikshah using the IIT Software package.
Vidya Vrikshah, is a Voluntary Socio-Cultural Service Non-Profit Organization,
registered as a Charitable Trust, based in Chennai. It is part of a collaboration
with the IIT Chennai to develop and implement a wide range of applications
and activities of socio-economic relevance and significance based upon
the IIT's Multilingual Software Package. All this accomplished through
the free services of volunteers drawn mainly from housewives and
senior citizens of the community. This collaborative effort of both
the IIT and Vidya Vrikshah arose out of their shared desire to
demonstrate the feasibility and power of a new and unique concept of social
engineering to marry technology to voluntary social effort to provide
solutions to fulfill crying social needs of the common people across the
country..
Over the last five years (as of 01-01-2004) Vidya Vrikshah's volunteer
force has grown to over 150 and the following are some the results of their
activities conducted under the aegis of its Centre for Disability Research,
Development and Training.
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Nearly
250 persons from all over the country, including large numbers of
disabled persons (many of them visually impaired) and instructors and teachers
from both normal and special schools and training institutions have
been given both the IIT software and training in its use, free of charge.
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Development
and implementation of a wide range of hardware and software based
projects as listed below and details of which can be seen in their website
at www.vidyavrikshah.org.
Project
Akshara
A Literacy Program to Learn / Teach alphabets and words in any Indian Language
or English, as represented in their Written, Spoken, Sign language
and Braille forms.
Project
Vidya
An Education Program to Learn / Teach any school level subject in any Indian
Language or English, as represented in their Written, Spoken,
and Braille forms.
Project
Siksha
Special Education / Training Programs to Acquire / Impart skills through
all Indian languages relevant to training of persons
with any type or degree of disability through the following component projects
:
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Project
Upanayan : for Mental disabilities
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Project
Dhvani : for
Hearing and Speech disabilities
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Project
Dhrishti : for Visual disability
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Project
Chaalanam : for Locomotor disability
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Project
Raksha : A Program to Learn
/ Teach Health practices for the prevention of disease and disability.
Project
Pariksha
To establish a Model Tele-Consultation Service which will enable a mother
with a disabled child to engage in a free Internet-based face-to-face
tele-consultation with a Medical or Rehabilitation Expert or
Special Educator or Trainer in any part of the country.
Project
Vikas
To establish a network of Vikas Training Centres to promote development
of women and children on the integrated approach described above in this
paper, by providing computers, relevant software modules and training in
their use to teachers, health workers and welfare workers in
Schools, Anganwadis, Self-Help Groups etc., especially in rural
areas.. Three Chennai-based NGOs ? Relief Foundation, Mentors, and Vidya
Vrikshah have come together to initiate implementation of this Project
in an organized way. Vikas Training Centres have since been set up in over
12 locations during the period 01-01-2003 to 31-02-2003 in Chennai, and
Kanchipuram, Tiruvallur and Vellore Districts. More centres are programmed
for the future.
Project
Pusthak
To establish a Model Demonstration-cum-Training Centre for production of
free Braille Text books for Visually Impaired students in all Indian languages.
An innovative and inexpensive duplication process has been developed
for this purpose, which can be widely implemented on a cottage
industry basis.
Project
Yantra
Adaptation of existing assistive devices or development of new devices
that will enable persons with different types of disabilities to use computers
in Indian languages, e.g.,
-
a Light-actuated
Keyboard (both Hardware and On-screen models) with Spectacle-mounted
Light Pointer that a bi-plegic or quadri-plegic person can use to operate
the keyboard
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modification
of an inexpensive radio-cum-taperecorder to serve additionally as a
hearing aid.
-
development
of Electronic Talking Text Books in local languages.
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development
of a new design for a braille slate, for learning to read and write
in braille.
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Call
for wider collaboration
Both the IIT Chennai
and Vidya Vrikshah would be glad to share their experiences, solutions
and other resources with Individuals and Organizations committed to activities
and programs to contribute to literacy, education, health and skills, especially
to the socially and physically disadvantaged in the country free of cost.
This could take the
form of a formal joint collaboration with the IIT Chennai and Vidya
Vrikshah by Individuals, Governmental and Non-governmental organizations
like Social welfare departments and education and training institutions
in the country who would like to establish or already have a deep reach
of welfare services among the socially and physically disadvantaged in
the rural areas, to greatly enhance the effectiveness of their existing
services at low or no cost. This could be through establishment of
Central Training Centres and/or a widespread network of individual
Vikas Training Centres, to be run by existing teachers and volunteers equipped
and trained to train large numbers of socially and physically disadvantaged
people in the proximity of their homes. The proposal outlined here
provides a model for a viable and inexpensive implementation methodology
as adapted for being undertaken typically by large eye hospitals .
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Contents
Introduction
Project
Vikas
Methodology
Implementation
Pilot
Projects
Software
Modules
(Vidya
Vrikshah projects)
Vikas
Centers
Call
for collaboration
Photographs
Equipment
Details
Each
Village Training Unit will be equipped with :
Hardware
(Minimal)
An
IBM Compatible PC with a 350 MHz Intel Processor;
Standard
AT 101 Keyboard
14
inch Colour VGA Colour Monitor;
32
MB RAM;
20
GB Hard Disk;
1.44
MB Floppy Disk Drive;
24
X CD ROM Disk Drive;
Mouse;
Sound
Card;
Microphone
and Speakers;
80
Column Dot Matrix Printer; (because of low running cost);
500
VA UPS;
1 Box
Floppy Disks;
10
Standard Braille Slates;
Software
Microsoft
Windows-9X/XP
MS-Office
The
complete suite of software packages on a CD including the Multilingual
Editor (Sound and Non-sound versions)
Braille
and other Utilities of the IIT Chennai; and the Training Packages of Vidya
Vrikshah, along with public domain programs for a Screen Magnifier
and On-Screen Keyboard.
The
Central Training Unit will be equipped with five sets of the items listed
above.
Vikas Centers
Main
Center
Vidya
Vrikshah
Swathy
Towers
DugaBai
Deshmukh Road
Chennai
- 600 0
Local
Centres
H-49/3,
Gitanjali Colony, L.B.Road, Tiruvanmiyur,
Chennai
- 600 041
27/3,
Vasantham Gardens,
MKB
Nagar, Vyasarpadi,
Chennai
- 600 039
Relief
Foundation,
18,
Sriram Nagar, Tiruvanmiyur, Chennai - 600 041
The
Ashram (Home for Children), 9, 3rd. Main Rd, Seethammal Colony,
Alwarpet,
Chennai - 60 018
College
Students & Graduates Association of the Blind,
Thakkar
Baba Vidyalaya,
58,
Venkatanarayana Road,
T'Nagar,
Chennai - 600 017
Maduram
Narayanan Centre for Exceptional Children,
Bala
Mandir Campus,
Gopathy
Narayanaswamy Rd,
T
'Nagar, Chennai - 600 017
Bala
Vidyalaya School for Young Deaf Children,
18,
1st. Cross St, Shastri Nagar,
Chennai
- 600 020
Nethrodaya,
8,
Sportan Nagar, Mogappair,
Chennai
- 600 050
Vikas
Training Centres (1&2), Tirukkalikundram
Women's
Self Help Group,
Govt
Girls High School,
Tirukkalikundram,
Kanchipuram
District - 603109
Vikas
Training Centres(1&2),
Illalur,
Govt.
High School, Illalur,
Kanchipuram
District
Vikas
Training Centres (1&2), Parivakkam,
Panchayat
Union School,
Parivakkam,
Tiruvallur District
Vikas
Training Centre, Ranipet,
Free
Evening Teaching Centre,
M.J.Shanmugham
Charitable Service Centre,
95,
Bazaar St, Ranipet - 632 401
Vikas
Training Centre, Nemam,
Grama
Nala Sangam / Panchayat School,
Kanchipuram
District
Vikas
Training Centre, Kadalur,
Grama
Nala Sangam / Panchayat School,
Kanchipuram
District
Vikas
Training Centre, Navalur,
Grama
Nala Sangam / Panchayat School,
Kanchipuram
District
Vikas
Training Centre, Kayar,
Grama
Nala Sangam / Panchayat School,
Kayar
Village, (via) Tirupporur,
Kanchipuram
District - 603 110 |
