Brief Project Background

Presently the project is limited to the people who are working in the organisation. The uniqueness of the project is use of available resources. The whole project started with the aim to have the facility to wards better documentation.

Since last 1989 Deepalaya has been using ICT for better effectiveness in it's work. Established in 1979 Deepalaya has emerged as the largest operational NGO in Delhi spreading it's activities in 76 slum locations of Delhi and 82 villages of Haryana. Deepalaya consider family as the unit of Development and focus on education so as to bring in qualitative improvement in the lives of it's, otherwise unprivileged, beneficiaries. Presently it has 13 offices around Delhi and Haryana which include 6 formal schools, one Human Resource centre and one rural resource centre. More than 180 employees, 200 entrepreneurs and volunteers are working to wards the mission of "enabling the child look beyond slums". Deepalaya has been the first few NGOs to use ICT in all aspects of the working environment of the organisation as well as using it for it's young beneficiaries to wards skill enhancement through advance training in software technologies.

Results

ICT Activities In Deepalaya:
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01) mother.deepalaya.org - An internal web, mail and proxy server - we call it Mother:

How effectively Deepalaya is using ICT can be judged by its INTRANET server mother.deepalaya.org. The server is located in the Human Resource Centre of the organisation with the following purpose:

- Automatic downloading of all emails (nearly 50 accounts)and distributing to local accounts (both POP and IMAP). All officers and executives of Deepalaya has their own email address like anybody@deepalaya.org which they operate from their own units through connecting to this server.

- Archiving document as per the programme, admin and account sectors. It is done by each user through simple and state forward web based administration. It is so simple that anybody with minimum knowledge of browsing can manage and share their properly.

- Providing internet access to all units. As soon as the users from other offices and schools connect to this server, using their local accounts, they enjoy the internet facility automatically.

- Sharing documents by publishing in mother.deepalaya.org through web interface, FTP or email.

- Managing webbased internal applications like Deepalaya's Direct Mail Campaign.

Unique features of INTRANET Server:

- Running on an assembled computer with GPL (free) software - Linux. - Completely interactive - no special knowledge required for the users to manage or share their documents. - Highly secure both to disallow intruders and restrict internal mishandling of documents. - Compatability to all computers. - Roaming facility for checking emails or managing internal softwares. - Offline downloading and sending emails - the server takes care of the online job of downloading emails from the internet server and sending messages outside. - Node for communication for all offices of Deepalaya around Delhi and Haryana.

02) www.deepalaya.org - the official website of the organisation:

Deepalaya has established it's official website back in 1997 with the help of a well wisher who previously created the first webpage as part of his own portal. Over the years Deepalaya employees have got themselves trained in the technologies involved and right now managing this website on their own. www.deepalaya.org is a completely interactive website with regular updates so as to inform the visitors and well wisher about it's activities. Some of the features of this website are:

- An archive of all annual reports (since 1979) and newspaper (regional, national and international) articles on Deepalaya. - Dynamic sponsorship programme to enable online sponsoring of children. - Dynamic guestbook. - Free E greetings. - Selling of printed greeting cards. - Option for subscribing/unsubscribing to text based quarterly newsletter. - Online processing of applications for jobs, volunteers and internships. - Movies and presentations on Deepalaya activities.

Uniqueness of www.deepalaya.org:

- Use of high backend but low front end technology. - Universal approach - no machine specific scripts are used at the front end (user side) so as to view the content properly in any computer of this world. - Completely database driven dynamic pages. - Completely managed by it's own employees as a part time hobby though keeping a high standard and maintaining regular updates. - Indexed by almost all search engines. - Linked with many non profit portals. - Active in raising funds. - No expenditure on space (it has grown more than 450 MB) as it is donated by a well wisher

 03) www.deepalaya.net - School-Net

In continuation with it's commitment to quality education for all Deepalaya has established School-Net ( http://www.deepalaya.net ) as a list server to make network of students in schools and colleges so that they can help each other not only in their study related aspects but also to provide an opportunity to express their opinion freely.

School-Net is a very innovative concept as:

1. The student can become a member in the simplest way i.e. sending an email to the server. 2. As per the characteristic of a list server any email send to the network would be circulated automatically to all members. The same rule applies to replies to any mail too. 3. The student can raise any question/opinion by sending a mail and others would respond to that. Since there would thousands of members, replies are assured. 4. All questions and answers will be archived in the website ( http://www.deepalaya.net ) for future references. 5. Barring indecent mails, everything else would be un-moderated. So, members would be free to raise any opinion.

This network is to be used to put up questions and answers related to the syllabus and out of the syllabus aspects. Students, teachers and specialist/experts will be members, so as to provide different prosperity on any issue/question.

 Future initiatives:

01) Using ICT for poverty eradication (with special focus on women and youth) in one of the remotest rural block of Nainital District, Uttaranchal, India through partnership with local NGOs.

02) Awareness generation, using ICT, on HIV/AIDS with women living in Delhi slums and later on linking the systems and infrastructures for income generation activities.

Lessons

01) If properly designed latest ICT facilities can be implemented with low capital cost and availablke resources. 02) Interactivity is the key to popularising and use of the available facilities. 03) Continuous handholding is required for developing the right attitude. 04) The chief of the organisation can make a difference with his/her attitude towards ICT.

Development Impacts

01) Using ICT for poverty eradication (with special focus on women and youth) in one of the remotest rural block of Nainital District, Uttaranchal, India through partnership with local NGOs.

02) Awareness generation, using ICT, on HIV/AIDS with women living in Delhi slums and later on linking the systems and infrastructures for income generation activities.

Project Information

Contact Information