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Promising Practices in TVET
UNESCO, together with other international organizations, has an important role to play in identifying and disseminating the knowledge and evidence necessary to formulate and implement relevant and effective TVET policies.
Following requests by Member States, UNESCO-UNEVOC has initiated efforts to identify and gather evidence of promising TVET practices for global dialogue and use. This database presents a set of initiatives from around the world that have been identified and selected by a team of experts as being particularly ‘promising’ for TVET in their context.
Technology and Civic Engagement Schools in Urban Slums and Low-Income Communities, Latin America
Programme Overview
Implementing Organization: The Center for Digital Inclusion (CDI), local organizations
Funding: Private sector and several non-profit organizations
Context and Background
While computers and computer-based communications and information systems are opening up new opportunities, 79 per cent of the world’s population remains digitally excluded. The ‘digital divide’ refers to the inequalities between some sections of society in terms of access to, use of and knowledge of ICTs. Of the world’s six billion people, just one billion have access to the internet, with the benefits of this tool not being evenly shared. In countries such as Brazil, where poverty is widespread and public education systems are extremely deficient, both the high cost of computer hardware and limited opportunities for training in computer skills deny access to most people of modest economic means. As a result, the opportunities available to economically disadvantaged groups are curtailed.
Description and Aims of the Programme
Founded in 1995, the Center for Digital Inclusion (CDI) has created an innovative model of promoting social inclusion through digital inclusion by partnering with grassroots organizations to open ‘technology and civic engagement schools’ in the most vulnerable urban slums and low-income communities in Latin America. There is a network of self-managed and self-sustaining CDI community centres throughout Brazil and 11 other countries, monitored and coordinated by their 24 regional offices. Schools are located in low-income communities, indigenous communities, psychiatric clinics, hospitals for mentally and physically disabled, and detention facilities. The community based organizations provide the infrastructure, while CDI provides free computers and software, implements educational methods, trains instructors and monitors the schools.
The centre was founded by Rodrigo Baggio towards the aim of making a positive difference in people’s lives by bringing technology, entrepreneurship and social action skills to some of the most impoverished and marginalized communities in the world. The centre’s mission is to ‘transform lives and strengthen low-income communities, by empowering people with information and communication technology skills.’ CDI’s programs seek to deliver education to individuals, as well as providing an expanded portfolio of technology services to communities, leading to skills for work in the modern labor market, increasing community development and promoting active citizenship, community mobilization, autonomy, ownership and entrepreneurial behaviours.
Implementation: Approaches and Methodologies
The CDI model places a premium on shared responsibility and local ownership, entrusting community members to manage and change their own schools. The programs are built on partnerships with established grassroots organizations in the communities they serve to encourage local ownership and ensure that the CDI approach is adapted to the local context. ICT is being used as a tool to create community empowerment and encourage people to solve problems for themselves. As part of the courses undertaken, participants are required to identify a problem within their community and use technology to conduct research to find an appropriate solution. Such issues can include sexual abuse, pollution, violence, crime, drugs and a lack of health care or schools.
Funding
CDI receives financial and in-kind support from a range of private sector and non-profit partners, including the WWW Foundation, Microsoft, Dell, Motorola, ABN-AMRO Bank, the Skoll Foundation, the Vale Foundation, Accenture, Avina, the Kellogg Foundation, Deloitte, IBM, Cisco Systems, Unilever, UNESCO and Ashoka. Although CDI seeks funding from various sources to expand in other countries, its community centres are ultimately locally owned and self-sustainable.
Participants
CDI community centres are technology and learning located in impoverished communities. In addition to low-income communities, the schools are also present in indigenous communities, psychiatric clinics, hospitals for mentally and physically disabled, as well as youth and adult detention facilities. Each CDI community centre operates in partnership with an existing leading grassroots organization. The community based organizations provide the infrastructure, while CDI provides free computers and software, implements educational methods, trains instructors and monitors the schools. The centres educate people from impoverished and marginalized communities to use technology towards fighting poverty, stimulating entrepreneurship, strengthening communities and empowering people to transform their realities. The approach is based on the principles of self-sustainability and self-management, with the local people also taught management skills. CDI’s leadership comprises professionals from the public, private and non-profit sectors, including former senior employees of international IT companies, alumni from universities and international social entrepreneurs.
Learning and Training
At the root of CDI’s methodology is the belief that education and ICT, in addition to increasing students’ professional qualifications, can also promote equality, democracy, active citizenship and entrepreneurship. CDI’s educational methodology includes teaching digital literacy, as well as civic education, community building, empowerment and entrepreneurial skills. The students work in teams on community challenges related to economic development, human rights, health education, environmental protection and non-violence. Educators invite participants to share their experiences and understanding of the world, prompting students to think about their community, their place in the world, their rights as citizens and the uses of technology. This exchange sets the tone for the group’s activities and marks their introduction to the ICT tools used throughout the course. Following on from their initial analysis, students consider the issues they are facing in greater depth, and start thinking of potential solutions. They use technology to collect, analyse and present data gathered from various sources. Students and educators plan an action to tackle the issue they have identified, which might include producing a video, holding a seminar/debate within the community, organizing a petition or launching a campaign. During the planning-process, they will gain further ICT skills, learn to work as a team and begin thinking strategically about how they can change their reality.
Students carry out their planned action, putting into practice the ICT skills they have acquired, engaging with the local community, acquiring valuable organizational and teamwork skills, and learning to overcome challenges they may face during the implementation of their plan. They can utilize the technical skills learned in class to mobilize their communities, engage in advocacy and awareness campaigns, and work together to solve the specific problem. Students evaluate the success of their project and reflect on what they have learnt from the course, revisiting the questions they were initially posed regarding their communities, their rights as citizens and the uses of technology. Students are required to record, organize and evaluate their findings at each step, thus reinforcing what they have learnt and gaining further ICT expertise. By the end of a four-month course, students are required to have initiated and completed a ‘social advocacy project’ using digital technology.
Students are trained in basic IT skills that prepare them for a wide range of basic IT jobs, and young entrepreneurs are provided the skills to streamline technical aspects of their small enterprises. The centres offer training in basic office programs, computer maintenance and networking, video and audio editing, blogging and website development. Furthermore, they also plan to expand the curriculum to business services such as résumé building, e-governance, graphic design, scholarly research, e-health, e-learning and job hunting. However, the primary goal of CDI’s training is to empower students to create positive change in their communities through the use of technology, rather than adopting a specific focus on job-placement.
Monitoring and Evaluation
CDI has earned more than 60 awards from various sources, including the Clinton Global Initiative, the World Economic Forum, Ashoka, UNESCO and news media. It has been widely recognized as a successful model of introducing tools of technology in a context-appropriate manner. However, with its rapid expansion across Brazil and an additional eleven countries, CDI faces the problem of quality control due to the diversity of its curriculum and management across its 717 sites. Indeed, this will persist as an issue as CDI expands to Africa. In addition, infrastructural challenges such as poor connectivity and lack of technological hardware may pose a challenge in many African countries that have not yet been encountered in the Americas.
According to an external impact evaluation, 87 per cent of CDI students claimed that their lives had changed positively after the program, with many of them going on to find better jobs, open small businesses, continue their education and become agents of change within their communities. The report also showed that 65 per cent of CDI beneficiaries are between the ages of 10 and 18, while 56 per cent are women and 63 per cent had no source of income. The impact evaluation indicated that CDI’s work has achieved the following results: 78 per cent of students improved understanding of their local communities; 75 per cent improved their reading and writing skills; 47 per cent found a new job; 34 per cent increased their income; 23 per cent re-enrolled in formal education; and 12 per cent opened their own business. Indeed, behind these numbers lie countless unique stories of personal and collective transformations.
Impact
50,000 students graduated from CDI centres in Brazil in 2011. Today, CDI is an international NGO with 501c3 status, and has trained more than 1.25 million people in 816 self-managed and self-sustaining community centres across 13 countries, including the USA, United Kingdom, Jordan and throughout Latin America, monitored and coordinated by 33 regional offices. CDI is currently expanding to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with further plans for India and other parts of Africa. CDI opened development offices in New York in 2007 and London in 2008, using the same acronym with an English language expansion (Centre for Digital Inclusion or CDI Europe in the UK). Since 2010, CDI UK has been known as CDI Apps For Good, which is an acclaimed education movement whereby young people in schools learn to create apps that can change their world, based upon CDI’s methodology. During April-June 2010, CDI Apps for Good successfully ran the first pilot course with nine unemployed young people aged 16-25 at the High Trees Development Trust in South London. Apps for Good has since grown significantly and now has almost 100 schools delivering courses to more than 5,000 students aged 11 to 18.
Contact
More information:
Center for Digital Inclusion (CDI)
Headquarters: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; New York City, London
Contact person:
References
Changemakers http://www.changemakers.com/project/center-digital-inclusion
Hunt, M. 2012. The Center for Digital Inclusion: Transforming Lives and Uplifting Communities by Bridging the Digital Divide. Huff Post Impact, blog posted on 28 September 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michele-hunt/the-center-for-digital-in_b_1922015.html
Jayaram, S. 2012. Training models for employment in the digital economy. Results for Development Institute (R4D), October 2012.
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