Author : Krishna V. Sane
Date added : 2002-04-15

Brief Project Background

The idea of training women from disadvantaged background originated under the UNESCO sponsored Locally Produced Low Cost Equipment (LPLCE) Project directed by the author during 1980-1995 when he was Professor at the University of Delhi. His (late) wife and professional colleague, Dr.Kamalni Sane, found that it was possible to train needy women in the area of Desktop Publishing (DTP) using the manuscripts they had written for the LPLCE Project. The growth of this interesting idea, conceived by a woman for women, was cruelly cut short by Kamalni’s fading health culminating in her premature demise on April 17, 1993.

Destiny however willed that this tragedy did not have a paralyzing but a catalytic effect of future developments. Thanks to a series of fortuitous happening, the informal groping got converted into Project SITA funded by the Information for Development (infoDev) program of the World Bank.

Empowerment of disadvantaged – particularly women and youth – is an important item on the global agenda. Another priority item is the problem of digital divide. A 30-month
Pilot Project titled SITA (Studies in Information Technology Applications: Computer-skill training program for needy women) has established that linking the two issues is one way to progress in both directions.

The infoDev-sponsored SITA was launched in July 1999. With its conclusion in December 2001, the Core Group of SITA has established an e-cooperative MitraMandal (Sanskrit for friends’ group) with sustainability and replicability as the central objectives.

Objectives

· To develop a strategy and a Resource Package for training low-income women with several known handicaps like limited language and communication skills.
· To train a Core group of Trainers
· To train 500 women for the ICT-enabled service sector.

Methodology
Small batches of selected trainees were given intensive hands-on computer training based on real life exercises using Ms Office 2000. The trainees and the trainers were encouraged to try role reversals to help them understand the needs of the two sides. Continuous monitoring of individual performances provided the basis for selection; it also provided the feedback for making appropriate changes in the content and presentation of the Resource Package.

Impact
Project SITA has received considerable national and international recognition. Some of the more notable examples are:

· The Global Junior Challenge Award (www.gjc.comune.roma.it) in December 2000 in Rome where 589 projects from 54 countries participated in the competition.

· A finalist in the Stockholm Challenge Award 2000 competition held in June 2000 and in the IICD Stories competition held in October 2000.

· One of six presentations for the Workshop on “Poverty Alleviation” attended by Mr. James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, during his Bangalore visit in November 2000.

· Invited for presentation at the Third Global Forum in Naples (Italy) in March 2001.

Two case studies

From a large number of interesting and often poignant stories, two case studies have been chosen because they emphatically illustrate the long-term benefits – through a multiplier effect -- of SITA-type gender empowerment projects.

Kiran Arora: She is 42 years old and separated from her husband. She lives in a Hindu family containing of her old parents, younger sister and a 15-year old daughter.
Kiran has shown exemplary commitment and ability in acquiring computer skills. She has also proved to be a capable tutor. Her determination to face domestic difficulties and overcome professional challenges has made her a role model for younger trainees. Her soft and gentle nature has enabled other trainees to come to her with their personal and work-related problems.
After SITA, she has started a Community Center where neighborhood adults and children are acquiring computer-skills. They are charged modest and affordable fees, which are helping Kiran to earn some money, which she hopes, will grow with time. When a few heroic women like Kiran find secure economic foothold in the self-employed IT sector, the spirit of SITA will spread slowly but surely.
15-year-old Raju (story given below) is an especially heart-warming case because Kiran taught him informally in her spare time. Encouraged by this experience, Kiran’s Center is coaching some boys also.

Yogesh Kumar: The second case study, concerning Yogesh Kumar alias Raju, is best described by quoting from ‘Indian Express’ -- one of India’s leading Newspapers.

Excerpts from the article titled “ Narrowing the Digital Divide”:
“Raju is a young boy, to be more precise a child from a deprived background. However what makes Raju different from most other youngsters from his background is that he can type at 115 words per minute, make data spreadsheets, is familiar with programs likes Tally, Power Point and can even use Paintbrush to make illustrations. Ask him what he would like to do and Raju pipes up, “I want to go into computers.” Ask him what aspect and the reply comes with quiet determination, “web designing.”
People like Raju were not strictly part of the program SITA or to be more precise Studies for Information Technology Application but he has benefited from the same mind-set of upliftment of the masses that drives his employer Prof Krishna V Sane. The project aims at “bridging the digital divide by teaching women from lower-middle classes the essentials of computer literacy.”

Results

Results
During its 30-month tenure, the Project Team

· developed a Resource Package for training persons with several known handicaps like limited language and communication skills. 500 CDs of the interactive Training Manual part of the Resource Package are being processed for distribution under the sponsorship of the South Asian Office of UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women).
· trained over 500 needy women in basic computer skills using the Resource Package
· designed a large-scale training methodology based on a blend of ‘contact’ mode and ‘distance’ mode.
· established the quality of training (please see the NOTE below) by successfully handling job work from national and international agencies.
· Identified strategies for attaining sustainability and replicability.

NOTE: The user-friendliness of the Resource Package, the commitment of the Trainers and the eagerness of the trainees to seize a zero-cost opportunity combined to ensure that the quality of training was found to be excellent. This statement is corroborated ‘external’ opinion as shown by the following samples.



“We have received today the typed text for the Technology Transfer Training
Manual. We are overwhelmed by the quality of the work both from the point
of view of accuracy and layout and also timely delivery. Congratulations
on your well-trained and able staff. Thank you for arranging this work for
us. Based on this excellent experience, we will surely continue to work
with you.”

Dr. J.Bischoff, Director, UN APCTT, New Delhi


“Ms Kiran Arora (of Project SITA) worked for AusAID, Australian High Commission on a short-term contract, and assisted us to update our projects database. The job involved Kiran to scan filed records and select appropriate information for the database.

Kiran did an excellent job and completed the assignment in a timely manner. Kiran was comfortable with the database and was able to complete the assignment with minimal supervision. I wish her good luck in her work.”

Mr. Kerry Groves, First Secretary, Development Cooperation, Australian High Commission, New Delhi.


Evaluation
Based on the monitoring mechanism, which provided regular feedback, the project evaluation took place in two stages. Stage I focused on the training methodology while Stage II dealt with the employment aspect. An independent and comprehensive evaluation was carried out towards the end by a two-member Swedish Team who visited SITA, under the auspices of the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), for an 8-week study of the Gender Empowerment programme. Generally speaking, the Swedish Report substantiates the internal evaluation as regards the strength and shortcomings of SITA. The Report also has transcripts of interviews with stakeholders, trainers and trainees. The full Report can be obtained from Ms. Malin Lingefelt (lingefelt@hotmail.com) or Ms. Ulrika Emtervall (emtervall@spray.se)

To overcome some of the deep-rooted difficulties faced by women from the lower-income group, SITA gave highest importance to the personalized style of teaching (to generate the “I can do it’ feeling and the ‘I am cared for ‘feeling) by ensuring a close and continuous interaction between the teacher and the taught. This was achieved through the requirement that every trainee, on completion of 48-hour course, had to assist the Trainer group in training the next batch.

Stage II evaluation was concerned with the employment aspect with reference to the basic need of SITA trainees to have a minimal but regular monthly income. The inability of the Project trainees to find stable jobs therefore came as a rude and unexpected shock. This glaring failure provoked the project management to search for answers to two questions:

· What is the root causes of this failure?
· What are the ways of overcoming them?

The first question was investigated through questionnaires and interviews while the second one demanded extensive field trials. The findings show that a large number of socio-economic factors are conspiring to create a rather complex cause-effect situation.
Solution
The dismal scenario is, however not without a ray of hope. The fact that most SITA trainees have acquired demonstrable skills means that all is not lost. A shift in approach is therefore required which changes the focus from finding jobs to finding ways for income generation. The following possibilities emerge based on extensive field trials.

Internship programme: This is based on the successful stint of some SITA trainees at the UN Asian and Pacific Center for Technology Transfer (UN APCTT). The enthusiastic support of the Director, APCTT can be translated by starting a formal internship scheme. In the first round, the Director could inform other UN agencies of the positive experiences. After consolidation of this round, the scope of internship placement could be widened to include other national and international organizations.
Needless to state, an intern not only gets some income but also -- more importantly -- gets the much-needed exposure to work environment, which should make getting jobs a little easier.

Casual worker: This is based on the useful trial with the AusAID (Australian High Commission, New Delhi) where one of SITA trainees worked for two weeks on “daily wage” basis. This programme, which is complementary to the internship idea, should be stabilized with the Australian High Commission providing the Letter of Introduction to other High Commissions/Embassies in the City.

Contracting job work: To test the feasibility of this idea as a dependable source of income-generation, trials were carried out involving the different skills and different organizations:

· Data entry work (World Bank, New Delhi)
· Word processing and DTP (Book Publishers like Motilal Banarasidas,)
· Visiting/greeting/invitation cards, brochures (Rotary International, Doctors, Police officers)
· Data base preparation (DAV school, New Delhi)
· Office Management (publicity posters, printing, distribution etc) for Australian Chemistry Quiz held in Delhi and Haryana in 2001.
· Online data entry and formatting work (Greenstar, USA; Global Junior Challenge, Italy)
· Transcription (South Asian office of OneWorld)

The proven ability of the trainees in meeting the demands of different category of ‘clients’ strongly suggests that contracting job work is a promising possibility in the attempts to become sustainable.

Training Center: The spread of SITA’s training approach can be achieved on a wider scale by creating a chain of Training Centers. Such Centers will meet the needs of the disadvantaged sector but they should charge a modest fee (unlike SITA where the training was given free).

Lessons

The overwhelming success of SITA’s training philosophy confirms the expectation that the disadvantaged have the capacity to assimilate new technologies if the latter are introduced in a manner consistent with the trainees’ limitations but which exploits their eagerness to join the societal mainstream on equal footing. However, any program for training the “have-nots” requires a holistic approach; a fragmented approach like training only will do more harm than good because it generates frustration if the trainees fail to find stable jobs and/or regular income.

The key lesson emerging from SITA is that every empowerment program should focus not only on training but also on income generation for trainees. This can be done through internship or “earning while learning” schemes. Since finding stable jobs in IT sector may be difficult, if not impossible, every pilot project should test and establish realistic strategies for sustainability and replicability. Follow-up proposals based on consolidation of the strengths of the pilot while overcoming its weaknesses should be field-tested.

SITA’s experience shows that the Core Group from the disadvantaged sector needs a ‘womb-to tomb’ approach for economic stabilization. This in turn needs cooperation from different sectors of society. The insights given by this study reinforces the opinion that if digital and gender divide are interlinked, other ‘divides’ facing the humankind may be easier to tackle. However, there should be no illusion that any complex socio-economic problem can be simply dealt by technology alone; what is needed is a co-operative approach where different sectors of society come together to use their collective strength and wisdom to reduce, if not banish, the curse of illiteracy, poverty, and disease that afflict a large fraction of world population.









A brief description is given here of how the SITA team is planning to translate into action the lessons learned during the Pilot Project.

The experience gained from SITA has led to the idea of establishing an e-cooperative, titled MitraMandal (Sanskrit for ‘friends group’) by women and for women. In as much as learning and earning have to go hand in hand if SITA-type projects are to survive and grow, MitraMandal -- perhaps the first hitech coop in the world – will have a Training Wing Talim (Urdu for ‘total education’) and a Jobwork Wing Prayas (Hindi for ‘effort’) which will network the trainees and the trainers.
The proposal for the e-coop has been selected by Digital Partners’ Most Promising Social Enterprise for 2002 Award. This Award is being given out in collaboration with the Indo-US Knowledge Trade Initiative (a joint program of the US-India Business Council and the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and industries – FICCI) to the most promising projects that are utilizing the digital economy to empower the poor.

MitraMandal has also been invited by Development Space (www.developmentspace.com) to submit a world-class business plan to potential investors and service providers who can help in implementation of the project.

Structure

The e-cooperative will consist of four constituents:

IT Professionals who will train the trainers and organize refresher courses to upgrade the skills on a periodic basis, take charge of publicity and marketing by interacting with the private and public sector agencies, and assure quality control of the work done by the co-operative.

Disadvantaged women — the focus of the cooperative – will comprise of a Trainer group (trained by the professional group) and successive Trainee groups (to be trained by the women trainers). The training will be based on the methodology developed under SITA.

Consortium of Agencies will provide internship opportunities and also job work like data entry, publicity brochures, Newsletters, DTP manuscripts etc. (International agencies, Publishing Houses, MNCs, government departments, NGOs and the IT sector will be approached to join the Consortium as members.) Since co-op rates will be lower than commercial rates — because of lower overheads — this type of win-win partnership has the potential for rapid growth and easy replicability.

Senior Citizens, like the author of this proposal, will coordinate the different facets of the coop and ensure that the social and commercial interests complement each other in such a manner that the human dimension of the effort is kept in the forefront.

MitraMandal will operate through a chain of Community Centers set-up in low-income neighborhoods. The general objective of the Centers will be to create IT awareness and literacy amongst adults while IT will be used as an educational tool for students. The Center will pay special attention to ‘catching them young’ by opening a fun wing for children utilizing multimedia-based activities.

The first MitraMandal Community Center has stated functioning in a low-income colony in East Delhi through the efforts of a five-member group led by Kiran Arora. Even though the Center is struggling for survival --- due to many teething problems --- the morale of the Core group is praiseworthy. SGTB Khalsa College (Delhi University), who are the Facilitator institution for SITA and MitraMandal, are trying to arrange a loan so that the Center can acquire minimum facilities for contracting job work. The management is looking for a seed grant, which will allow the Center to stabilize – an essential requirement for expansion, diversification and replication.

Development Impacts

It is widely believed that ICT offers unprecedented opportunities for ushering an era of harmonious global progress through partnerships and cooperation. Since empowerment of the poor and needy is a crucial pre-requisite for sustainable development and since ICT has so many obvious advantages, it is not surprising that ICT is considered as one of the more potent weapons in the empowerment process. Why should preference be given to gender empowerment? Because women constitute not only half of the population but they also happen to excel in professions, which require ‘care and share’ approach so essential to bring the ‘have-nots’ in societal mainstream. The fact that computer-based work can be practiced from home means that a woman does not have to face the conflict ‘work or family’ which is a welcome choice for SITA-type women workers.

It should be mentioned the proposed women’s c-cooperative has ambitious plans in many directions. For example, since SITA originated from trials in DTP under the Low Cost Educational Publications Program, it will be appropriate to set up a publication wing -- tentatively titled ‘ Books for Millions’ --- for bringing out children’s books in local languages at a cost which even poor parents can afford. Similarly, inspired by the Global Junior Challenge Award Competition, there is a plan to start an IT competition for students in the South Asian Region to encourage creative use of ICT for learning/teaching S& T concepts.


The modest effort described herein is no more than a small drop but there is every hope that a large number of such drops will coalesce in due course to form ponds, lakes, rivers and eventually an ocean of change sweeping across geographical and other boundaries to wipe away ignorance, exploitation, superstition and also lower the walls of suspicion and distrust based on caste, creed, gender, race, faith, etc. For this to happen, it is necessary that current empowerment initiatives are identified, encouraged, monitored and supported until they become self-reliant. They should then repay the debt by offering a helping hand to new initiatives so that a social chain reaction is triggered off cutting across national and regional frontiers.

Project Information

Are there any partners involved : yes
What is partners role?
Partners

1. Education Technology Unit (ETU) of SGTB Khalsa College ( Delhi University) who are Facilitator for Project SITA and for the e-cooperative MitraMandal. ETU has also provided institutional umbrella to the Project through administrative and managerial support.
2. UN APCTT, New Delhi, has signed a MOU with ETU for assistance in field trials with particular reference to the internship program.

It is important to note that both partners have offered cooperation for ideological reasons by offering their support free of charge.

Contact Information