telecentre.org in the Dominican Republic

[telecentre.org]

telecentre.org is getting some great press in the Dominican Republic, where we've supported a workshop on the sustainability of community access to ICT initiatives (Taller sobre la sostenibilidad de las iniciativas de acceso colectivo a las TIC en la República Dominicana), organised as part of the Act!ivate project.

Yacine Khelladi, president of the Fundación Taigüey, manager of several rural ICT projects, including the Guanaba.net telecentre in the DR, community technology activist, researcher, consultant, and organic farmer (don't even try to keep up with him!), organized the workshop together with Amparo Arango (the technical coordinator for the unit that supports the DR's National Commission for the Knowledge and Information Society, known as CNSIC). Participants from all over the country and from all sectors came together to exchange learning and best practices related to the management of "salas tecnológicas" (public technology centres) and telecentres.

José Rafael Vargas, president of the Instituto Dominicano de las Telecomunicaciones (Indotel), used the media generated by the event to explain that hundreds of thousands of children, youth, and adults are using the 1000+ public technology centres that his organization has established. Indotel plans to install 1600 centres, with a focus on poor, marginal, and rural communities. The centres provide digital literacy training, Internet access, virtual libraries, and English classes.

Fundación Taigüey opened the workshop by sharing the results of a study examining 300 government-funded community access centres. The study looked at work practices, resource use, sustainability challenges, and community and social impact. Download PDF of the study results.

In a November 26 article published in El Nuevo Diario (see PDF), Vargas emphasized long-term sustainability: "Indotel's mission is to guarantee the successful management and the sustainability of these centres in partnership with the local institutions who run them, community leaders, and service providers." Vargas also emphasized that infrastructure is not enough — digital inclusion means investing in increasing people's capacity to take advantage of information and communication technologies.

Silvia Caicedo, telecentre.org's Program Officer for Latin America and the Caribbean, also attended the event. Check out her page for her experiences.

As an outcome of the workshop, the stakeholders present agreed to continue a virtual, informal discussion, to strengthen exchange of best practices, and to convene a formal committee to prepare further networking activities. This is the first step toward a Dominican Telecentre network, which will be part of the regional Alliance of the Caribbean Telecentres (ACT!).