Making Waves : GASALEKA & MAMELODI TELECENTRES
Stories of Participatory Communication
for Social Change
TITLE: Gasaleka Telecentre, Mamelodi Community Information Services (MACIS)
COUNTRY: South Africa
FOCUS: Access to new technologies
PLACE: Gasaleka and Mamelodi
BENEFICIARIES: Rural and urban users
PARTNERS: South Africa National Civic Organisation(SANCO), Ellisras Technical College, IDRC
FUNDING: Universal Service Agency
MEDIA: Computers, Internet
There are no roads to Gasaleka. The outside visitor spends two hours carefully and slowly driving on a path of swamped holes, stones and sand, surrounded by infinite extensions of palm trees, before reaching the firsthut of the village near the borders of Botswana. This remote village of mud huts and red sand lanes accommodates the first telecentre established by the Universal Service Agency.
In spite of some infrastructure and economic problems,
Gasaleka Telecentre remains as one of the most active and vibrant in South Africa. The main reason for that vitality in the midst of daily adversity is MasiloMokobane, the director of the project and a genuine telecentre champion. Mokobane is a telecentre visionary. From the first day, Mokobane has not only been fighting for the survival of the telecentre, but he has been enteraining new ideas to better serve his community through the use of new communication technologies. He remembers the day the Gasaleka Telecentre was inaugurated. "It was a great day for us. Everybody came to celebrate it". The early success of the centre is partly explained by the computer training offered. Another factor is that there is no other place in the area to make a phone call. However, according to Mokobane, "the business is going downdue to the problems we have with the telephones. Sometimes the phones are not working. And the customers say the calls are very expensive", When I arrived in Gasaleka, the three telephones were not working due to days ofheavy rain.
Mokobane is nevertheless optimistic about the future of the project. Hardships do not shadow his enthusiasm. He is full of new ideas, and he explains them with a wide smile. One of his most innovative plans is the publication of a community newsletter. The villages that integrate theGasaleka community are not reached or covered by any news service. We have many news in Gasaleka, but they are not reported to the community, says Mokobane. The telecentre will not only work as a reference resource centreoffering access to information and communication technologies, but it will take on a new role as an organisation for the production and dissemination of local information. The telecentre can become the memory, the history of this community", explains Mokobane.
Written by Raul Roman, who visited Gasaleka and seven other South African telecentres in 1999.
Gasaleka, Botlokwa, Tembisa, Mankweng, Mohodi, Apel, Siyabonga and Mamelodi. These are some of the places villages or suburban areas in the Gauteng Province and the Northern Province where telecentres have been established by the Universal Service Agency, a South African government institution.
The Mamelodi Community Information Services (MACIS) and the Gasaleka Telecentre are two good examples of the advantages and problems of countries such as South Africa aspiring to universal access in Information Technologies. Gasaleka is a remote rural areaintegrating 34 villages with a population of approximately 30,000 people, while Mamelodi is an urban setting; since 1998 this telecentre has been housed by the Mamelodi Heritage Forum, located next to the metro station, a shopping complex, a taxi rank, welfare services, and the Pretoria City Council.
The Gasaleka Telecentre was the first established by the Universal Service Agency in March 1998. It is owned by the local South Africa National Civic Organization (SANCO). The Mamelodi CommunityInformation Services (MACIS) was "adopted" in April 1998 by the IDRC Acacia programme through the Universal Service Agency but it had been actually set up in July 1995 by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
The two telecentres have similar equipment: nine computers, telephone lines, e-mail service and/or Internet connectivity, photocopiers, scanners, printers and fax machines. Both offer computer training, which appears to be a factor for its success and acceptance. Studentsin Gasaleka receive a certificate from the Ellisras Technical College upon completion of the course. Alas, only one out of the ten first students found a job after taking the computer training. This may bethe main reason why the number of students has decreased significantly in 2000.
The Mamelodi Telecentre is basically a reference centre. "We do not try to reinvent what is already existing in the community", says the manager, "we always refer people to outside community resources when necessary; many people come here just asking for directions or addresses". The mission of MACIS is to provide information on all aspects of life to community members to cope with normal day-to-day problems and to improve their quality of life.
"People are not aware of what is happening in the telecentre", says Gasaleka project director, Mokobane. He has employed seven agents that will inform the community about the telecentre and its services. It is a kind of proactive marketing. Mokobane is also aware of thevalue of assessing community needs. "It is very important to ask the community every time you offer a new service or start up a telecentre; there is nothing you can do if you don't consult the community. You need to have a regular consultation with the community, so that they know what's happening in the telecentre, and what services areyou offering".
The villages that integrate the Gasaleka community are notreached or covered by any news service, due to the weak communications infrastructure of this isolated area. One of the most innovative plans of this telecentre is the publication of a community newsletter. The development of a newsletter would not only respond to the information needs of the community, but it would enhance the sustainability of the telecentre. The project will also reinforce the functions of the telecentre as a focal information point. The telecentre will not only work as a reference resource centre offering access to information and communication technologies, but it will take on a newrole as an organisation for the production and dissemination of local information.
Still today, South Africa is characterised by an alarming unbalance in resources available for different sectors of the society, even though the reforms after 1994 have generated a significant social metamorphosis. Statistics from 1996 show 89 percent of white households have a phone while only 11 percent of black households do. While state-of-the-art telecommunication networks are available in white urban areas, black rural areas have limited access to at best poor or non-existent services.
A handful of projects are aiming to introduce informationtechnologies in education and development. The Technology Enhanced Learning Initiative (TELI) is a Government plan that "focuses on the implementation of various key projects that introduce and use technologies effectively in South African education and training". SchoolNet, founded in 1997, is a national NGO, working to linkschools and educate teachers and students in Internet technology skills. World Links for Development (WorLD) is a World Bank programme that mobilises the equipment, training, educational resources and school-to-school partnerships required to bring students in developingcountries online and into the global community
Telkom has established a number of Centres of Excellence, all based at South African universities. Cyberhost offers public Internet access and plans to launch one thousand coin operated Internet kiosks in public places across the country. The South African Department of Communications has launched a wide range of projects such as the Public Internet Terminals (PIT).
Another major project is the establishment of telecentres through the Universal Service Agency, which has set up around twenty telecentres in the Gauteng Province and in the Northern Province. Many other telecentres will be soon established. The Universal Service Agency was founded by the government in 1997 and is responsiblefor ensuring universal access to all telecommunication services.
It is too soon to expect social changes to be produced by the insertion of new telecommunication technologies in rural and urban areas of South Africa. Most of the Universal Service Agency telecentre projects have been functioning for less than two years, and their impactis mostly related to the potential of access, rather than changes in the community.
While the majority of the recently installed telecentres serve the better-off sectors of each community, a few are significant paradigms of an interest in promoting the vision of community ownership and participation. These are telecentres aiming to create, process and diffuse information for the development of their communities. TheMamelodi Telecentre through its project to become the Mamelodi Information Bureau and the publication of a community directory, and Gasaleka, chiefly through its intention to develop a community newsletter, can be included in this group.
The Directory of Services is an important output of the Mamelodi Telecentre Its 22 pages contain useful information on the community, and it's updated every year.
The Gasaleka Telecentre has built good community networks; every organisation in the area supports and works with the telecentre.
According to one of the members of the centre's board of trustees, the "telecentre is well-known, although we need to engage the tribal authorities more. However, we don't have problems with any organisation". The aim of building networks is also to bridge the insecurities and perception of inaccessibility which surrounds the term information and to "introduce" information technology to disadvantaged communities.
The Mamelodi Telecentre has tried to involve the community from the beginning. "We listen to the community to know what they want", says Esme Modisane, the project director. "We are very community rooted, we understand the dynamics and issues in the community; we have training in community work and facilitation, and we have good community networks". Yet, social exclusion is still a problem: "it is true that illiterate people do not come and use the telecentre". Business people visit the telecentre to use the Internet and communicate with clients via e-mail. They also use the computers to printdocuments and to do financial work.
The MACIS project manager was initially trained by the CSIRon information management, information facilitation and communication skills, interviewing techniques, the use and handling of computers, the Internet, data gathering, database development and maintenance, needs analysis and interpretation, and digital information kiosk management. Training should be an important component in all the other telecentres as well, but this is not always true.
In spite their equipment and trained staff, most of the telecentres set up by Universal Service Agency are essentially used for very basic access to telephony, fax and computers, as well as services connected to these technologies, such as typing. They can be identified ascommunication shops rather than multipurpose community telecentres. The managers of Gasaleka report that "nobody uses the e-mail" in the centre.
"The first obstacle to accomplishing the objectives of the telecentre is the fear towards technology, especially among adults so we have to do a very good job to direct them to technology. We have to make them realise that they can use the computers too. The second obstacle is that most people in the community are unemployed, andthey cannot afford our services", considers Modisane.
Another main challenge is sustainability. Says Modisane: "that is a general rule: telecentres are not sustainable". The main sources of income are the phone calls, the faxes, the photocopiers, and the typing service. These revenues serve to cover the running costs of the centre, but there is no money left to pay the salary of the manager and the assistants.
Universal Service Agency did not do any kind of baseline studies to establish the telecentres. There was no planning stage, no baseline research, and no clear explanation and discussion of project objectives.Generally speaking, no tailor-made information is prepared to meet the needs of the community. Makoro, the manager of a Universal Service Agency telecentre in the township of Siyabonga, Johannesburg, metaphorically summarises the essence of the problem: "Universal Service Agency gave me a car, but they didn't give me a driver's license. Why do I want a car if I don't know how to drive it?"
There is also concern about electricity and telephone deficits, which is part of the reason why none of the telecentres in rural and isolated areas were connected to the Internet.
Information for this chapter is largely based on Towards a Training Framework for Telecentre Management: A Case Study in South Africa by Raul Roman, CornellUniversity, August 2000, also e-mail exchanges with the author.
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