The Role of Telecenters in our Communities

You and your telecenter are part of an important worldwide movement. For about 15 years — since “telecottages” began appearing in countries as widespread as Sweden and Australia — telecenters have been established to give people in large and small communities access to various information technologies. Much of the attention today is on access to computers and the Internet; however, some multi-purpose community telecenters provide information-related services involving other media such as audio and videocassettes, publications, newspapers, and community radio.
Many large international organizations support this movement. These include the World Bank in Washington, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, UNESCO in Paris, the World Health Organization in Geneva, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in New York and others. Various national governments have actively supported the development of telecenters as a means for people to share the use and advantages of information and communication technologies (ICT). Examples include South Africa, Egypt, China, Nepal, India, Hungary, Australia, Mexico, Jamaica, and Canada. Non-governmental agencies (NGOs) and individual shop owners are also active in setting up some form of telecenter. You can see these in places from Uganda to Peru.
In this module, we will explore the role of telecenters in their communities by looking at several examples. We will also look at other media that can join telecenters to make up a larger community communication system and provide access to persons who, for various reasons, cannot use the newer ICTs. But first, we can look at one example of how access to ICTs makes a difference in the lives of people.