Telecentres Improving lives and empowering communities in Uganda

Location: Kampala, Uganda
Created By: Esther on 25-Mar-2008 2:25 AM

Britain’s World war II Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill proclaimed Uganda the “Pearl of Africa” during his visit in 1908. He was attracted to the magnificent landscape, wildlife, friendly natives and culture of this landlocked country.
Uganda is bordered by Kenya (East), Sudan (North), the Democratic Republic of Congo (West), Rwanda (Southwest) and Tanzania (South). Over the years, civil wars, pandemics like HIV and AIDS, disease and poverty have done a lot to taint this ‘pearl’.

Over 80% of Uganda’s 30,000,000 people live in the rural areas. 70% of the population is engaged in subsistence agriculture as the major economic earner. This has rendered majority of the people poor and can hardly afford access to ICTs. Due to the low income of majority of the population, they have been left behind in terms of technology advancement.

But with the start of telecentres in 1999, they became the poor man’s solution to the digital divide. Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and UNESCO partnered to establish the first wave of telecentres in Uganda to give the rural population a chance to access ICTs.

As a result, four telecentres were established; Nakaseke Community telecentre and Nabweru Community telecentre in Central Uganda, Buwama Community telecentre South East and Kachekano Community telecentre in Western Uganda. Building on the experience of these first wave of telecentres has seen the development of over 113 telecentres. Most of these have been established by private business people, Non Governmental Organizations and other donor agencies according to UgaBYTES Initiative, one of the biggest telecentre support networks in the East Africa region.

The target population of these telecentres includes teachers, students, health workers, business people, farmers, women, children and the community at large.
Most of the telecentre services include computer training, email and internet, scanning, photocopying, library, typesetting, video recording and development of local content that addresses community information needs.
Only the four UNESCO and IDRC founded telecentres have the community radio component. When the first donors were quitting after the pilot stage, the telecentres were handed over to the local councils.

As telecentres continue to develop and grow, the success stories as a result of their impact have been flowing in hordes.

One local artisan in the Nabweru community got linked to Koreans doing related works through browsing the internet at Nabweru Community Multimedia Telecentre. They interacted using the internet but eventually made personal contact. The Korean visited Uganda and helped the artisan to access funds to attain training in making knives and spears in Korea and to purchase modern equipment and tools for his business.

In Nakaseke a rural area located 64 kilometers north of the Ugandan capital Kampala, the telecentre has greatly changed the way of life of people in this community. This area was greatly affected by a civil war in the early 1980s.
“Before I attained computer lessons at the Nakaseke telecentre, I was using the freehand style to design school badges, banners and signposts. This was taking a lot of time and was not very neat. When the telecentre opened, I enrolled for computer lessons in Word processing, Excel and other packages. Computer knowledge has helped me improve on the quality of my work, making it faster and easier,” explains Joyce Namyanja a local designer.
This increased on her clientele and profits subsequently.
But the telephony services provided by these telecentres have also helped the communities. In Nakaseke the telephony services have helped to improve the health services provided at the local hospital.

The local doctors use the telephone to communicate to the main referral hospital in the city where most of the specialists are found. While in Eastern Uganda, the Uganda Development Services telecentre located about 140 kilometers from the capital has done a lot in supporting farmers. Started by UDS friends in the UK in 2001, the telecentre has changed the lives of farmers in this impoverished district.
“Since inception, UDS telecentre has reached over 568 farmers in the villages. Volunteers chosen by their communities obtain appropriate information from the UDS Centre through browsing the internet then visit, teach and mentor the farmers. They also set up demonstration plots,” explains UDS Director, Rita Mijumbi.

Mulopa of Buganja village a few kilometers away from the telecentre has improved the sustainable ways of farming through surfing the internet and using the information he gets from www.ugandadev.com. He was at first a peasant subsistence farmer but is now a model farmer in the village. From his income, he is able to pay his children’s fees and has improved his standard of living.
At Buwama located 68KM South East of Kampala, a large notice board displaying agricultural information welcomes you to the Buwama telecentre.

The telecentre offers agricultural information in Luganda the most widely spoken local language and English. The information is got through partnership with Council for Economic Empowerment of Women for Africa (CEEWA). Through this partnership, they have provided information to the farmers and formed women groups aimed at economic empowerment for women and their families.
“Through membership with CEEWA I have got involved in making passion fruit syrups, learnt better methods of goat raring and banana plantation as opposed to the tradition ways I used to do things,” explains Lugalama one of the users at Buwama telecentre.

Kiwanuka Yudaya a beneficiary of Nabweru telecentre explains, “I previously used to be a subsistence farmer but through taking advantage of the telecentre, I was introduced to modern farming methods and can now feed my family and have some more to sale which has improved my income.”

Whereas the telecentres are increasingly becoming popular for the internet services and local content provided, sustainability has remained a great challenge.
They can barely make money as they are located in the rural areas where majority of the population can barely afford a dollar a day.

UgaBYTES initiative a telecentre support network has been at the forefront of ensuring these telecentres remain sustainable.
The organisation facilitates telecentres to increase their capacity by sharing knowledge and e-discussions to create an impact to the grassroots development. The organization is also involved in building capacities of telecentre practitioners in management and technical aspects and carries out lobby and advocacy roles.
Other challenges these telecentres face include donor dependence, sporadic power, lack of locally relevant content, high connectivity fees which means most of them are without internet for most part of the year.

But with the emergence of initiatives especially networks to support telecentres, these challenges will soon be history.
Maybe telecentres will help Uganda regain its tainted ‘pearl’.

Contact Name: Esther Nasikye

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