Project Title:
Low-cost IT center for the Philippines

1.0 Project Details
Project Name: The Scala Program
Grants Proposal Reference Number: 0301A3_ S03
Research Organisation: Engineers Without Borders, Canada
Country: Philippines
Research Team: Sarah Murray, Parker Mitchell, Nabeel Al-Kady, Louis Dorval, Benjamin Green, John English
Date of Presentation: October 2003

2.0 Executive Summary
This narrative interim report summarises our outputs and progress to date for the first three months of the granting period of the Scala Program, from May 2003 to August 2003. It outlines the program's progress, and we outline some of the lessons and challenges from the experiences to date.

We are also proud to share with you the good news that the Scala Program is a finalist for the prestigious Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) Youth Award 2003. The GKP Youth Award aims to reward and bring international recognition to the outstanding work of young people who have used ICT for the promotion of development around the world. We are very excited about this recognition and know that this exposure will increase our positive impact for the next phase. With your permission, we will recognise the foresight of the Pan Asia Grant in allowing us to undertake this work.

3.0 Outputs

 4.0 Lessons Learned from Past Program
We would rate the first centre (set-up in 2002) as a success. The centre is still training people one year after its opening but it would certainly benefit from improvements related to its sustainability and impact. Upon visiting the past program, we learned the following four lessons that will help to improve our future project outcomes:

1. Continued need for closer monitoring to ensure long-term sustainability. Some equipment was broken, and centre objectives or management structure was not clear. The first centre did have a committee designated for monitoring the program, made up of the centre's employees. However, there seemed to be a lack of time and/or interest for the program. We addressed this by applying a closer monitoring structure through regular reporting and questionnaires, and scheduled meetings. Our structure monitors target beneficiaries, centre objectives, equipment, and resources to help ensure a more sustainable program. Equally important, is a good partnership and our new partners, with the DSWD, have demonstrated immediate ownership and attachment to the centres and a strong commitment to make each centre their own. In addition, to reports for our purposes, our new centres are regularly monitored by onsite visits from their national counterparts, which will ensure a strong attachment and sense of responsibility for the success of the centres.

2. Need for a more robust way to measure impact.
This is always a challenge in ICT projects. To start with, we need to gather baseline research of all centres. Otherwise, results are subjective. Unfortunately, no 'real' baseline information is available for the first centre other then retrospective analysis. Useful baseline information for measuring the impact of our centres includes the status of our trainees before their training (e.g. education level, employment status, overall wellness, and income opportunities, etc.). We have worked on developing impact assessment and baseline research tools to aid in this process (Tools will be submitted on November 15th, 2003 with required reports). All trainees, trainers, and social workers answer a questionnaire before the ICT training. Then, participants are required to answer a similar questionnaire after the training (in three month intervals), in order to assess the impact our training has had (e.g. have the trainees found employment, gone back to school, how has their vulnerability changed, etc.)

3. ICT training is not enough.
Having a primary focus of ICT training is not enough to have defined development outcomes and impact. For our new centres, we have changed our IT centre program's focus from vocational training to an integrated ICT resource centre. This focus combines computer-literacy education with other soft-skills training as well as the development of linkages among the existing public services (employment, informal education) to provide a holistic approach for our target beneficiaries.

Our experience in the Philippines has illustrated the fact that there are very limited opportunities, resources, and services at the disposal of the underprivileged to find employment. Therefore, our beneficiaries may obtain computer literacy training but how they can use these skills is most important. Therefore, our new centres also focus on encouraging the 'out-of-school' youth to return to formal education and we provide linkages for the trainees from within their community. The centres are also building their own linkages to provide information on local and international job opportunities, training opportunities (both formal and informal), certification courses, etc. Finally, we have added an entrepreneurship-training component to the program, which builds skills for career and self-employment opportunities.

Our ICT training also now incorporates soft-skills training, relative to its target beneficiaries. For example, if the target group is the 'out-of-school' youth then sessions will be provided on topics such as nutrition, physical fitness, anger management, local laws etc., to provide a more balanced education and to improve their life skills.

4. Increased clarity of program objectives.
Objectives should be clear at the beginning. Review of the first centre showed a majority of the trainees were educated and employed and used the centres services for skill upgrading. This highly educated beneficiary group was not our intended focus or desired outcome because ICT training is available in the Philippines for those who can afford it. This is partly because of our partnership and due to weak monitoring. We addressed this concern with our new partnership. The DSWD targets only the underprivileged, specifically the out-of-school youth, and persons with disabilities and offers the ICT training for little or no cost. For our first centre, a trainee minimum of 75% who are unemployed was set, and these trainees would pay a smaller course fee to ensure our development outcomes, while the other 25% could be employed, thus paying a higher course fee to assist in the cost of the centre.

5.0 Challenges
In addition, the following challenges have affected our program:

1. Change in partnership.
Our partnership changed this phase from TESDA to the DSWD, primarily due to our desire for stronger monitoring and a different beneficiary group. The DSWD is a well-respected branch of the Philippine Government. The mission of the DSWD is the following:

To provide social protection and promote the rights and welfare of the poor, vulnerable and the disadvantaged individual, family and community to contribute to poverty alleviation and empowerment through SWD policies, programs, projects and services implemented with or through Local Government Units (LGUs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), People Organisations (POs), Government Organisations (GOs) and other members of civil society.

We are still integrating this new partnership within our program but we are very excited about the potential results. We have very similar development objectives as the DSWD and are working on plans for phase three.

2. Change in ICT training centre locations.
Related to our partnership changing we needed to change locations to those that were associated with the DSWD. Consequently, rather than install the three centres in the region of Sarangani, we instead worked in Tacloban (Leyte), Tagbilaran (Bohol), and Cebu City (Cebu). The new centres have the advantage of reaching three different regions throughout the Philippines and we have been able to work within all three management levels of our partner (municipal, provincial, and national). In addition, recent political unrest on the island of Mindanao also affected our location choices because security sources suggested that we should not work in that area at this time.

3. Change in project management.
During the summer, our program manager changed from Nabeel Al-Kady to Sarah Murray. Nabeel received an employment offer in Canada that he was obliged to accept.

Sarah is a graduate of Computing and Information Science from the University of Guelph, Canada and was working as an Application Developer for Sun Life Financial before accepting a volunteer position with the Scala Program for phase two (May 2003 to August 2003) in the Philippines. Sarah's experience this summer allowed for a seamless management transition and subsequently, she has become the National Coordinator for phase three (September 2003 to September 2004). In addition, Sarah is writing the remainder of the IDRC report requirements. Please contact her with any further questions.

If you have any questions, please contact:
Sarah Murray, National Coordinator - The Scala Program
Office: 416-481-3696 Cell: 416-409-0978 Email: scala@ewb.ca