UNESCO Supports Creation of Free Community Telecentre Network in Brazil
03-12-2003 ()
It was on November 19, 2003 at 11:30AM, when visitors of the first of five pilot telecentres of the NGO "Gems of the Earth Rural Telecentre Network" sent out their first e-mails from São Gonçalo do Rio das Pedras, a community of about 1,500 people in the Jequitinhonha Valley in Brazil.
UNESCO, through its Office in Montevideo, Uruguay, supported the pilot project through the acquisition of basic computing units to support free telecentres in four of the five communities. The "Gems of the Earth "project is part of the UNESCO Free Community Telecentre Network along with two other free telecentre projects in Paraguay and Argentina.
The Brazilian-based NGO "Gems of the Earth Rural Telecentre Network" aims at facilitating the creation of free telecentres in rural communities with less than 2,500 inhabitants. The pilot project started in November of 2001 when the NASA engineer Marco Figueiredo moved to São Gonçalo do Rio das Pedras, a community of about 1,500 people in the Jequitinhonha Valley, one of the poorest areas of Brazil. Five communities were mobilized to enter the digital age and create a self-sustainable model for the establishment of rural community telecentres. They are São Gonçalo do Rio das Pedras, Milho Verde, Tombadouro, Conselheiro Mata and Rodeador.
The "Gems of the Earth Network" recently received the support from the Ministry of Communications and received the donation of broadband Internet access via satellite, as part of the GESAC Programme, for all five communities of the pilot project.
Community associations in each one of the five locations provided the place to house the telecentres initially and a group of local volunteers are developing a business plan to create a new non-government organization, which will manage the development of their community telecentre.
The "Gems of the Earth Rural Telecentre Networ"k is now seeking support to develop web-based distance education programmes to support capacity building and jobs creation in the communities. The NGO uses a free-knowledge approach where every content created by anyone of its member telecentres are freely published in its website. The idea is to create a model than can be replicated by other communities around Brazil at the lowest costs possible.
The Network also promotes total transparency in the financial operations of the telecentres in order to facilitate support from within and outside the community. A web-based telecentre management system is planned to be developed in free software to support the establishment and growth of the community telecentres. The system will allow supporters to follow up with developments from anywhere in the world where Internet connection is available.
The computing systems are composed of a high-end computing server and one multimedia terminal. The architecture adopted supports the addition of low-end computers (used or new) to the network, allowing the telecentre to grow according to the needs of the community. The software architecture utilizes a free software distribution based on the Linux operating system, called Libertas . The Libertas distribution uses the Gnome Desktop and the OpenOffice software suite, among many other free software applications.
The Brazilian-based NGO "Gems of the Earth Rural Telecentre Network" aims at facilitating the creation of free telecentres in rural communities with less than 2,500 inhabitants. The pilot project started in November of 2001 when the NASA engineer Marco Figueiredo moved to São Gonçalo do Rio das Pedras, a community of about 1,500 people in the Jequitinhonha Valley, one of the poorest areas of Brazil. Five communities were mobilized to enter the digital age and create a self-sustainable model for the establishment of rural community telecentres. They are São Gonçalo do Rio das Pedras, Milho Verde, Tombadouro, Conselheiro Mata and Rodeador.
The "Gems of the Earth Network" recently received the support from the Ministry of Communications and received the donation of broadband Internet access via satellite, as part of the GESAC Programme, for all five communities of the pilot project.
Community associations in each one of the five locations provided the place to house the telecentres initially and a group of local volunteers are developing a business plan to create a new non-government organization, which will manage the development of their community telecentre.
The "Gems of the Earth Rural Telecentre Networ"k is now seeking support to develop web-based distance education programmes to support capacity building and jobs creation in the communities. The NGO uses a free-knowledge approach where every content created by anyone of its member telecentres are freely published in its website. The idea is to create a model than can be replicated by other communities around Brazil at the lowest costs possible.
The Network also promotes total transparency in the financial operations of the telecentres in order to facilitate support from within and outside the community. A web-based telecentre management system is planned to be developed in free software to support the establishment and growth of the community telecentres. The system will allow supporters to follow up with developments from anywhere in the world where Internet connection is available.
The computing systems are composed of a high-end computing server and one multimedia terminal. The architecture adopted supports the addition of low-end computers (used or new) to the network, allowing the telecentre to grow according to the needs of the community. The software architecture utilizes a free software distribution based on the Linux operating system, called Libertas . The Libertas distribution uses the Gnome Desktop and the OpenOffice software suite, among many other free software applications.
Related themes/countries
· 2003
· Brazil: News Archive 2003
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