Project Title:
ICT Enabled Women's Social Net

Recipient Institution:
One Village One Computer

Shaligram House, Station Road, Thane 4000601
INDIA

Tel/Fax: 91 22 25363122

Project Leader:
Anil Shaligram
anilshaligram@yahoo.com

Amount and Duration: US$ 9,000 / 12 months

Commencement Date:
1 December 2003

Project background and justification:

The girl child is an unwelcome commodity in India, forever discriminated against and subordinated in her life cycle as a woman. In Maharashtra one woman dies per 297 births. Women's nutritional intake is less than 2700 calories. The result is that 3/4th of the girls in the age group of 3-6 age are anemic. 49% of adult women are also known to be anemic. 39% women get married before the age of 18. The early age of marriage combined with their low health status and early childbearing further impoverishes their health status. Today, 55.27% of the total crimes committed in the state of Maharashtra are committed against women. Of the total population, 88 lakh women in state are deserted or divorced. And 52% of these women are over 60 years.

The unorganised labour market in the state has grown to 59% in the year 1990 to 1998. Only 1.5% rural women get regular wage labour despite female wages being 25% less than men. 30% women are the main bread winners of their families but are still not counted as women headed households. There are 8.6% women headed households as per official records in rural Maharashtra.

The drop out rate for girls upto 7th is almost 40% while despite scoring consistently better than boys only 65% girls reach 12th std. 38.8% of women landless labourers from the age group of 15- 29 are illiterate, while 19.6% of self employed women from the same age group are illiterate. The figures for the age group 40- 45 are even more shocking. 83.3% of women landless labourers from the age group of 40- 49 and 65.4% of self employed women from the same age group are illiterate.

Osmanabad district belonging to one of the most backward, underdeveloped regions of Maharashtra more than contributes to this state of affairs. In Osmanabad district, there are 930 women for every 100 men. There are 709,309 women to 762,947 men. Female literacy rates too reflect the inequity and discrimination against women. Only 347,372 females as compared to 532,312 men are literate in the district. More than 40% women illiterate, with a high dropout rate in primary school. Besides having a negative impact on the empowerment of women, this also impacts on the population growth rate for the region, which stands at a high of 5%.

The district of Osmanabad has a per capita domestic product that is slightly above 10,000. The monthly per person consumption rate is 369.92rs, with 16.67% of the rural population falls below the poverty line.

Tuljapur tehsil covering almost 80 villages, too follows this trend. The female population is that of 15211, while that of males is 16,503. Only 9,153 women are literate as compared to 12,609 men. 85% of this population stays in the rural areas making it imperative that any programs to advance the lives of this population must focus on building capabilities of women in the rural areas.

A majority of the women from Tuljapur tehsil, as in rural Maharashtra, are self employed. They are the main stay, of not only their family's but also the local economies. These women, having come from poor rural families are often illiterate, lack information on the few institutional mechanisms that exist to support them and unaware of their constitutional rights. As a result they face harassment and exploitation at the hands of the middlemen, local municipal staff and police.

The self-help group (SHG) movement of India is well documented world over. Today there are over 75,000 SHGs in Maharashtra alone. Loans amounting to Rs 14,54,70,543 have been disbursed to 69,168 SHG members. 50% of the SHG groups are linked with banks and loans upto 6,54,91,117 have been disbursed to them. Each SHG is made up of a group of around 20 women who meet regularly to save and disburse money among its members. But this is not the only reason that has made them so popular. These groups also serve as a space for women to come together, share their experiences, their sorrows and derive strength from each other. But once gain these, mostly illiterate and poor women, lack the time and mobility to come together across the region and benefit from the access to information and resources that such a collectivity would give them. There are around 400 SHGs in Tuljapur Tehsil.

The 73rd Constitutional amendment has enabled the participation of women in local governments and today 33% of elected representatives in local self-government are women. Although there are many instances of women being used as proxies by the male members of their family's, those of women making a difference to their communities form the majority. But these women still face the age-old barriers of patriarchy. Women representatives face non cooperation from male colleagues; they are prevented from entering the offices, are forced to rubber stamp resolutions and even have to face sexual abuse to be able to discharge their official duties. Illiteracy and lack of information prevent them from exercising their right and taking their rightful place in public decision making processes. That a significant percentage of this group comes from the so-called untouchable castes only adds to the indignities heaped on these women representatives. We recognise that women in backward communities bear a double burden, that of being a member of their marginalised community and the other of being the gendered sex.

As for backward communities, we perceive ICTs as a tool that will catalyse the power shift from the haves to the have-nots and support the process of women's empowerment. We are focussed on building the capacity of the young girls/ women to lead their communities in the struggle for social transformation.

Our experience of women only ICT Training Camps has demonstrated to us the need of creating safe- women only spaces to encourage participation of women. We are therefore proposing the establishment of an ICT Seva Kendra (Service Centre) that will cater exclusively to women. The proposed ICT Seva Kendra will focus on leveraging ICTs like email, word processing, database management to redressing the problems faced by the self employed women, self help group members and elected women representatives of local self government bodies. Thus, the Centre will catalyse and support the building of several issue, category and region based ICT enabled women's social networks.

Project beneficiaries: state clearly which segments of the population will benefit from the research.
Self employed women, members of Self Help Groups's & elected women representatives of local government bodies

Operational Area: Tuljapur taluka, Osmananbad district, Marathwada region, Maharashtra

Project objectives: Output

Project beneficiaries: state clearly which segments of the population will benefit from the research.
Self employed women, members of Self Help Group's & elected women representatives of local government bodies.

Project sustainability: state how continuity is to be sustained if your proposal is for developing a system that will exist after the project funding.
All 1v1c Seva Kendra's are being developed as community co-operatives. In the third quarter of the project, we will begin the process of handing over ownership of the Kendra to a women's co-operative, whose membership will comprise of the representatives of the target constituency.

Members of the co-operative will be motivated to volunteer at the Center. This will cut down personnel costs and lower the recurring expenses. We will also explore the possibility of the proposed co-operative getting government support.

Besides, the action plan includes a very proactive Local Resource Mobilisation Strategy, which will facilitate the pooling of resources by the local community.
We also propose to generate resources by charging user fees for services delivered. Other innovative features like ethical advertising, classifieds etc will also be explored.

Besides, the larger goal is to build a core team of community activists who will further train women from their villages drawing resources from local government institutions and community, and take ownership of the proposed government community information centres. We are already in discussion with the Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India on this issue.

This low cost and sustainable model can easily be upscaled and replicated in our region.

Project methodology: state clearly, in the methodology how the general and specific project objectives will be achieved.

1. Conduct outreach with target community to raise their awareness about potential of ICTs.
2. Conduct a baseline survey of target community to build a user profile and identify user needs.
3. Collaborate with local women's groups, government department's and other institutions to facilitate sharing of resources like content and services that respond to the target constituency's needs.
4. Collaborate with academic institutions to identify interns who would volunteer at the Kendra.
5. Set up the infrastructure of the Kendra.
6. Build literacy skills of target community
7. Conduct Mass ICT Training
8. Train target constituency to generate content on their practical and strategic needs, capturing this information and presenting it at the Kendra.
9. Conduct research on the impact of this capacity building on the target community.
10. Perform random sampling at regular intervals to study responsiveness and effectiveness of services offered by the Kendra.
11. Build linkages with banking, credit, marketing institutions to provide services through the Kendra.
12. To collaborate with local self government institutions to offer e government services at the Kendra.
13. Begin the process of forming the ICT Kendra women's co-operative.
14. Explore the use of radio and TV for disseminating information
15. Explore the development of an E commerce net that will serve the target constituency.
16. Initiate a pilot version of "Violence Redressal Net' in collaboration with local groups working n the issue.

Project time-line: 12 months

Project outputs: state what the project will produce and in what form it will be delivered and disseminated

Ø Generation of content to respond to the practical & strategic needs of the target constituency.
Ø Effective usage of ICTs by target constitency
Ø Awareness & information about support systems and mechanisms that support them
Ø Support to the target constituency to advance their lives
Ø Changes in software package in response to user feedback by technology partner
Ø Target constituency to take action to demand entitlements
Ø Target constituency to counter mainstream stereotyping, objectification and neglect of women
Ø Increased economic benefit and end to target community' s exploitation and Women representatives play an active role in the public decision making processes harassment
Ø Sharing of resources by local community and reduced costs
Ø Empowerment of women and collective action at a regional level to advance their lives

All the output generated by the proposed project will be disseminated not only in the form of CDs but also traditional means like print and cultural tools but also usiing mainstream media like radio and television.

Project monitoring: state what monitoring and/or evaluation processes are being proposed
Ø Setting indicators and milestones
Ø Neutral third party observation
Ø Participatory appraisal

Project Applicant
One Village One Computer.

Project Staff:
Chief Project Coordinator- Asmita M J.
Regional Project Coordinator -Sunita Bagal.
Project Officers (Sr)- To be appointed on intimation of award
Project Officer (Jr)- To be appointed on intimation of award

Appendix 1

One Village One Computer Project
Age Old Problems, Youthful Movement

Bottom Up Approach:
1V1C is a Bottom Up approach of ICT for Development. We center ourselves on a village community, create human capital in the community starting with training in simple everyday IT applications.

We equip the village community in necessary IT tools and also conduct capacity building exercises to build leadership skills. Social aspects like gender sensitivity and local issues are integrated in the curriculum and methodology. This unique process of training that integrates technical and social skills has yielded rich dividends.

Thus, a substantial amount of human knowledge capital is created at the local level. This human capital forms the basis for initiating a technology centre at the village level.

Knowledge Transfer:
We see Knowledge Transfer as an interactive process in which advanced cutting edge knowledge is imparted to the local community by experts and technologists, while the former feeds the latter by sharing local needs and aspirations, giving feedback and sharing creative applications, thus actively
shaping the knowledge and technologies itself. We have found that the use of Information Technology facilitates this process by continuing the dialogue between the local community and the experts and technologists after their face to face interaction.

In keeping with this, we organise regular meetings of the community, especially activists, with experts and technologists from the non profit, corporate and public service sector.

IT Enabled Social Capital:
The primary approach of 1V1C is to develop innovative socio-organiza-tional solutions such that advanced knowledge and technologies can be adopted and used by the backward village communities on a large scale to catalyse the development process. The goal is to take cutting edge technologies

and advanced knowledge to the most backward areas and communities, and catalyse development processes in that community. 1V1C does not concentrate on developing any particular technology or technological solution nor does it concentrate on a particular set of development problems. We strive to build or to contribute to build a universal IT based development model for the backward sectors in a said socio-economic environment.

Towards this we have put forward a new concept of IT Enabled Social Capital as follows.
It is possible to build IT enabled knowledge based rural social networks in
backward areas. If IT is successfully and extensively diffused at the village level, people's networks can be formed behind these IT networks. These social nets form a horizontal structure. It may be possible to regulate market in such a way that within a net, transactions can be restricted, at the same time these nets can form a marketplace and exchange with each other as well as with other entities. In the long drawn activities of social networks, each social network can specialise in certain domains and areas, and can exchange with others in the marketplace.

As a social network as a whole cannot and does not act on its own but only through the activities of its agents, there is always freedom and scope for entrepreneurial activities. In fact the social network becomes a good resource for social entrepreneurs. Due to non-rival nature and externalities of the knowledge products, the network will ultimately get enriched through these innovations. In a network, both consumers and producers are come together, are self-organizing and self-regulating, and are capable of facilitating their own developmental and political processes. In the functioning of IT enabled rural social networks both demand and supply sides are interesting. Here consumers can unite across the networks and put forward their demands in new novel democratic ways. Also, not only are services rendered but new innovative methods of knowledge and technology diffusion also discovered. As these social nets are IT enabled social communities, through their activities a pool of knowledge products are accumulated. Since the knowledge products are essentially network products, these assets produce network effects which allow the social net to grow further and does not stagnate.

Gender Issues:
While organizing the village youth for One Village One Computer Cam-paign we have mobilized women to take the leadership. As stated earlier, we have integrated gender issues in the training programs and also held a few separate ICT training camps especially for women. The Murbi IT Center is almost entirely handled by the young women activists. One important lesson we have drawn is that it is necessary to take up gender issues from beginning and this learning will be reflected in our statewide expansion strategy.

IT Seva Kendra:
IT Seva Kendra is a window to the world for the village community through whom they can access cutting edge knowledge, modify and use that for their own benefit, publish their own implicit and local knowledge and share their aspirations to the world.

The IT Seva Kendra's primary role is to link the village community to the world without losing its own characteristics and uniqueness. The Kendra will have a symbiotic relationship with the community, with both elements inspiring, nurturing and drawing from each other. Thus the Kendra is part of the community and contributes to its growth, while at the same time the community supports the Kendra to grow and be sustainable. IT Seva Kendra becomes a tool, a nucleus for the community to progress and fight against its backwardness and isolation. It is this interactive and incremental process of knowledge transfer that makes the IT Seva Kendra's stand apart from the much publicised telecenter models across the world.

To corroborate this functionality of the IT Seva Kendra, it is necessary to build an organisational structure that promotes collective ownership and appropriation, and weaves it into the larger community fabric. Any organisational structure with private ownership and individual centric benefits will utterly fail and reduce it to a modern public telephone booth providing just communication services to the community.

We envisage the IT Seva Kendra's as community owned, cooperative entities that will nurture learning and innovation in the community, especially the youth.
Community computer support committees, which will generate issue specific data, are formed around each of the IT Seva Kendra's. The IT Seva Kendra's will be managed and run by local activists only, and priority is given to building women activist's capacity to run these. The managing committee of each of these Kendra's shall be drawn from lead activists from the local community.

1V1C is in operation for almost three years. For the past one-year we concentrated mainly in New Bombay area to experiment on various aspects of 1V1C. Since last January, we have trained more than 800 village youth, boys and girls from the 95 villages in the New Bombay region. We conducted two major conferences, one in August 2001 and the other in January this year. Both the conferences had active participation of the local youth, both in the organisation and participation with almost 500 youth attending the conferences.

1v1c Murbi IT Seva Kendra, New Bombay

In December 02, we launched the first tech center called as IT Seva in a village Murbi. It consists of 3 computers, a web cam, scanner, printer, fax, Internet connection etc.

Murbi is located in Panvel, Raigad District in Maharashtra. This village is one of the 95 villages, where farming lands were acquired by CIDCO (City & Industrial Development Corporation) for planned urbanization. All these villages face problems of unemployment, poverty, unequal compensations for land acquisition, sudden cultural & economic change and have been left marginalized in the whole developmental process.

1v1c had taken many basic IT training camps in this area before the Kendra was established. These camps gave IT literacy to the people where curriculum was addressing day-to-day issues faced by the villagers. Instructions and educational content was prepared in Marathi. Around 800 youth in 18 villages were trained from whom are drawn the volunteers of 1v1c. This has created impact in the area.

Murbi IT Seva Kendra was established in December 2002. To begin with we started refreshing course for 15 young activists, 6 girls and 9 boys. The idea was to train them to run the Kendra. This went on for almost three months. Meanwhile we had many brainstorming sessions of team work, leadership development, gender issues, social entrepreneurship, networking & marketing which equipped the team to run the whole enterprise.

The entire infrastructure- building (separate room), electricity, and furniture is provided by the villagers. We had to wait for buying new machines till we got funds. After buying new PCs, we re-launched the Kendra on 8th June 2003. Just before starting afresh we took a team of volunteers to Manvat for the inaugural function of the Kendra over there and teleconferencing of Manvat volunteers with the Virtual University on that day. This helped to broaden their vision.

The center is established as a IT co-operative, and is being managed by 1V1C young women activists. The villagers will be provided information services at IT Seva . Many such tech centers will be built shortly and connected with each other to form a network.

1v1c Manvat IT Seva Kendra, Parbhani district, Maharashtra.

This center was launched by One Village One Computer Project (1v1c) on 5th June 2003 on the eve of inaugural function of the UN led Virtual University for mitigation of drought (VUSAT). 1v1c is a partner organization of VSAT and Manvat Kendra is chosen by the VUSAT as a field activity.

Impact
(1) EGS: Information is being collected from even more villages of employment needy people for EGS. The information is computerized in the Kendra. On the basis of this information local authorities have sanctioned the EGS work for the year 2003- 2004 to the tune of Rs. 30,00,000. This will give employment to at least 1800 people and stop migration of 1000 families.

But these EGS works begin only in March, while migration starts in November. 1v1c Kendra got approved under EGS a sanction of Rs. 3,00,000 for one year from Agricultural Department especially for migrant families, which will benefit some 150 migrant families who would have normally migrated in November this year.

1v1c practices a proactive local resource mobilization. The agricultural labourers who benefited under the EGS last year have voluntarily contributed Rs.16000 to the Kendra towards offsetting the recurring expenses.

Computer Support Teams (CST) have also been successful in countering the state misinformation.

(2) Health: The CST on health conducted a survey and created a database of two villages Irlad & Rudi and found 76 patients of Cholera, Vomiting, and Gastro. This was contrary to the official departmental reports that IT Kendra recorded all the information. When the Computer Support Team confronted the health department with this information, it was forced to conduct a five day medical camp with a team of 6 doctors and attending staff to the villages.

(3) Below Poverty Line (BPL): The CST on Below Poverty Line (BPL) looks into problems relating to ration cards. Currently, the government is conducting a survey to identify BPL populations that will stand for the next five years.

The criteria followed by the government has been widely criticised for being responsible for eliminating precisely those it aims to serve. So the CST has decided to conduct parallel survey with criteria that would identify the real needy. So far, CST volunteers have conducted the survey in the following villages, created computerized database in the Kendra and also handed over the data to the officials concerned.

(4) Water: Official records are proclaiming normal and more than normal rainfall in some regions in Manvat area this season. This rain year, the CST of water is recording information about the rainfall, water levels in the reservoirs, and also agricultural and crop related information the information on daily basis in many selected villages and a computerized database is being created.

Even these primary database collections are proving useful. When compared with the official records, our database shows that at many places the rainfall is far shorter than the average. This discrepancy arises because the official rainfall for the entire district is measured at only at the district headquarters leading to a misleading picture. With these initial results the CST volunteers have started recording data at many more villages and with more precision.

Virtual University for mitigation of drought: As stated above we have entered into collaboration with the VSAT. They have provided to us good content inputs and knowledge support to fight against drought. One such important input from their side is ICRISAT's Dr. M.M. Sharma's Rainwater Harvesting Technology. We are implementing this technology in a pilot project at Nitrud village in the adjourning district Beed. We will introduce the technology at Manvat as well as at many other places of Maharashtra. From September the collaboration with the VUSAT will be extended further.

(5) Agricultural: The CST of Knowledgeable Farmers is formed to work on this issue. They have prepared a proposal for the government scheme of Krishi Bajarbhav Kendra (the market rate center for Agro Products). The District Agricultural department has approached the Kendra with a proposal for training to be conducted by the Kendra volunteers on Organic Agriculture. This will fetch the Kendra Rs.5000.

(6) The volunteers have also developed many Computerized Educative Graphic contents on the following subjects:

1. Use of Toilet in Hygienic way
2. Instructions for installation and use of Hand Pumps
3. Cleaning of Common water Tanks
4. Tips On water pollution

The volunteers have prepared such displays on various subjects.
In the past three and a half months, over a hundred people have visited Kendra and studied these displays.

(7) Total Rs.400 DTP work has been done at the Kendra so far.

The Kendra has now a team of 8 leading volunteers, 4 volunteers are trained in computers. 50 volunteers are active in 10 villages with at least 2 women volunteers from each village.

Manvat Kendra has plans to spread its work in 30 nearing villages in coming months and then to 20 more covering 50 villages. In the following month 2 training camps will be held exclusively for women and young girls.

IT Enabled Community Based Drinking Water Solution Programme
1v1c has decided to come out with Maharashtra wide campaign on this under the leadership of Kumar Shiralkar. This year we have launched two pilot programmes for this one at Netrud, Beed district and another at Mod, Nandurbar district. The results of these pilots will be known by the first week of October 03. Here we give a brief account and progress made in the field so far.

Knowledge Driven Community Solution:
We want to integrate three streams in this:
1. JalChitra Water Audit software developed by Dr. Vikram Vyas of Ajit Foundation.
2. Rainwater Harvesting for Drinking Water developed Dr. M.M. Sharma of ICRISAT.
3. Cement Brick Technology for Rainwater harvesting developed by Dr. Kalbaug of Vigyan Ashram.

Operationally these solutions can be integrated on the basis of IT enabled knowledge community networks which are also expected to be up and running during the course of the Project. By integrating these three streams into a single whole and drawing community into it we formed a methodology for solving the problem of drinking water at the community level. (This is already being done on a pilot basis)

Action Programme:
A) In the current season (2003) we will be implementing a pilot in totality at Nitrud in Beed district.

B) In 2003, we are also implementing the JalChitra software at eight other locations in rural Maharashtra.

C) A state wide camp on Knowledge based Solution of Drinking Water.
The districts that will be covered: Dhulia, Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Nasik, Thane, Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Wardha, Parbhani, Nanded, Usmanabad, Solapur etc.

On the basis of this action plan, we will try to implement the drinking water solution to many places in Maharashtra in the rainy season of the year 2004.

Nitrud Pilot Project:
1v1c has launched successful the pilot programme in rainwater harvesting, water Management & Conservation in Nitrud, Taluka Mazalgaon, (District Bid ). The village has population of around 6000.

Mod Pilot Project:
Similar programme is launched in Mod. Mod is located in Nandurbar district and is the first IT Seva Kendra of 1v1c. The results of these two pilots will be known in the first week of October. Once the pilots are through results are out we plan to bring out an educational booklet and educational camp at the state level.

The IT Enabled Community Based Drinking Water Solution Programme will be implemented by 1v1c throughout Maharashtra on its own initiative. At the same time 1v1c is taken as a partner organization by the Virtual University, so we will take it on that platform as well. Also a proposal on this line is put forward to the science and technology department of the central government.

Appendix 2
Report November 2001- August 2003
Marathmoli, maharashtra women's net
... the Internet-based information network and support service
for women and other marginalised people of Maharashtra

Marathmoli's work over the last year and a half has focussed on the following areas

Training- If ICT is successfully and extensively diffused at the village level, knowledge nets, with women at the leadership, can be formed behind these IT nets. It is this emergent social capital that forms the mainstay of our work.

The focus has been conducting ICT Mass Literacy camps to raise the community's, especially young girls and women's, awareness on the potential of ICTs in advancing their lives and building their capacity to lead their communities. The training programs are centred on the politics of social transformation, with gender issues at the core. These gender issues are conceptualised taking into context the rural Indian realities of caste, class & feudalism.

Content- Marathmoli believes that ICTs make available to women their own media, which will support them to challenge the culture of silence and invisibility. We also believe this to be a space where women's knowledge, tacit and otherwise, can be valued, systemised, shared and disseminated.

Besides Marathmoli is a space where information on resources that respond to women's needs can be accessed, and their capabilities enhanced. This kind of transfer of knowledge from the local to the global, and vice versa will encourage critical thinking.
Marathmoli has chosen to focus on the issues of health, violence, education, livelihood, micro-credit & water.

Organising- But we look at ICTs as only a tool that will catalyse the process of social mobilisation. Therefore, social mobilisation is a critical aspect (& impact) of our work. We realise that the unique features of the Internet that allow it to transcend time and space, lend it an important space in the struggle for women's empowerment.

ICT Enabled Women's Social Net- We perceive ICT as a tool that will catalyse the power shift from the haves to the have nots and support the process of women's empowerment.

ICTs enable women to overcome the challenges of the barriers of mobility, lack of leisure time, financial resources, literacy, isolation, lack of control over media etc. ICTs provide women an opportunity to come together in a safe space to share their experiences, learn from and support one another. It is this space and the opportunities it provides that will catalyse the formation of an ICT Enabled Women's Social Net.

Knowledge Net- We see Knowledge Transfer as a two way interactive process. In this process, advanced cutting edge knowledge is imparted to the local community, and the community in turn gives back in terms of local creative applications, local needs and aspirations and feedback to the experts and technologists, thus actively shaping the knowledge and technologies itself. We have found that the use of Information Technology greatly facilitates this process.

The concept of knowledge transfer so integral to the concept of IT Enabled Social Capital is nurtured by the Knowledge Net. This Network not only generates knowledge but also promotes partnerships.

We aim to build a knowledge network of experts and local communities to facilitate learning, and nurture innovation. Such an interactive process will empower local communities to take ownership of the concept of Marathmoli.

The last year
For the past year, Marathmoli has worked with the Project Affected Youth Organisation (PAYO) in collaboration with 1 Village 1 Computer (1v1c). One Village One Computer (1v1c) has provided leadership to PAYO in the New Bombay region by building their capabilities to use ICTs for social organising. Marathmoli is especially focussed on the young girls and women in these communities.

We have conducted over 15 ICT training programs, four of which were held exclusively for the young girls. The training programs centred on the politics of social transformation address issues of gender subordination. The training curriculum covers not only the necessary ICT tools in the local language, but presentations and discussions on social issues and capacity-building exercises to build leadership skills. Social issues are also integrated in the skills building exercises.

Marathmoli also conducted an intensive capacity building program for six young women activists drawn from the participants of the ICT training camps. Today, these activists are managing the first IT Seva Kendra established by 1v1c in village Murbi in December 2002. They will also undergo hardware training in the following month. The activists now assist us as trainers in the ongoing training camps and mobilise women in the surrounding villages independently.

Marathmoli has developed extensive material covering a range of issues in the area of health in the local language. We are also working on developing material on micro- credit. This is the first such initiative. The website portal will be launched shortly. We also propose to put this and other content on CD Roms as also use traditional media to disseminate the same widely.

Marathmoli is also collaborating with International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) on the Virtual University project. The project aims to develop climate literacy and drought preparedness among rural communities, development workers, service providers and policy makers. Marathmoli will be developing content with a gender perspective for the same.

Marathmoli is also networking with government agencies and technology institutions like the Department of Technical Education and the VJTI a renowned institute of engineering in Maharashtra.

Marathmoli has also been represented and presented papers at various national and international conferences like the Know How Conference in Uganda in July 2002. Marathmoli has also been invited to present its experiences at the GASAT 11 conference to be held in Mauritius in early July. Marathmoli was also invited for the Forum on ICT and Gender held in Malaysia last month. Marathmoli also networks with technologists like Prof Jhunjhunwala of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras who has pioneered the Cordect Technology, Dr Vikram Vyas of the Ajit Foundation, Jaipur who has developed the innovative water audit, management & planning software Jal Chitra and M S Sridhar of Cyberscape Technologies,which is a leading name in local language software in India.

Besides, Marathmoli's Board, a mix of grassroots activists, academicians and managers, is well represented by individuals who have rich experience of working on gender issues, especially violence, science & technology, girl child, livelihood, micro-credit, media, local self governance, natural resource management and watershed development, especially in rural India.

Learnings from the Field/ Promise for expansion
Our experience over the last year has demonstrated how a strategic use of ICTs, with local issues, local community and local resources at the core can build capacity at the grassroots. The effective linking of the resultant knowledge network to a cross section of stakeholders has generated an ever-growing symbiotic knowledge net. Integration of ICTs with local and traditional media and arts has ensured that local skill, talent is nurtured.

Besides, a critical impact of Marathmoli's work over the last year has been the internalisation of gender issues by the 1v1c core team and the development of a gender strategy that informs its work. It also brought home the criticality of integrating such a strategy in community based projects from day one.

The achievements of the past year have prompted Marathmoli to draw up an expansion plan. We have already begun work in Mod, Nandurbar district, Karad, Satara district & Manvat, Parbhani district (in collaboration with 1v1c) besides the New Bombay region.

In the following months, besides working in these regions, we propose to focus on the Marathwada region, the most backward region of rural Maharashtra. Marathmoli proposes to expand its capacity building program to these areas, organise young girls and women and empower them to take leadership on their communities.

Please note that all of Marathmoli's work until May this year has been done without any institutional funding whatsoever.