Nabanna – Networking Rural Women and Knowledge
18-03-2004 (New Delhi)
In a quiet wing of the Office of the Municipal Counsellors building in off-the-beaten-track Baduria, between Calcutta and India’s border with Bangladesh, a group of eight young women are watching their teacher use a strand of waxed thread to pluck eyebrow hairs off the face of one of the students.
At the start of 2004, in this small town of West Bengal, Sandhya Banerjee started teaching eight women a beautician’s course, based on skills she had acquired earlier through a six-month course supported by the local government. This course is one in a series of new opportunities for poor women, facilitated in this 134-year old municipality by a team called Change Initiatives under the name Nabanna- meaning a festival celebrating autumnal harvest of rice.
One of the nine partnership initiatives under UNESCO’s programme on ICTs for poverty eradication, Nabanna’s novel information network enables Baduria women with relatively few opportunities for income and independence to create new spaces, both physical and virtual in which to congregate and learn, as well as new social and technological networks, through which to share information and skills. Interesting things seems to be happening.
The Nabanna network builds from a simple facility in the centre of town where computer training and networking workshops are conducted. ‘Candidates’ of this venture come here to learn and practice using computers to build up skills they require to put their emerging network online. The idea behind Nabanna is to facilitate women using media and ICT tools to communicate- i.e. document, organise, share and use information.
At the front line of the information network are the candidates; all ‘poor’ but with somewhat better educations, a thorough grasp of the Nabanna concept, and now better ICT skills. Each candidate reaches out to ten or so women in her neighbourhood with whom she shares information and ideas emerging from her experience of the Nabanna process. This becomes her information group. The network is animated in part by a regular tabloid newspaper with local features and excerpts from the participant’s diaries, increasingly run by the women themselves.
For instance, it was an ad published gratis in the Nabanna tabloid, expressing Sandhya’s interest in conducting a beautician course, that got her in touch with various interested women from the Baduria community and together they worked to initiate the course. Sandhya is now a member of Manashi Banerjee’s information group and is proactive in the network’s learning and communicating process. Of the 50 rupees she earns from each student, 5 rupees go back to Nabanna.
Though still in its early stages, the Nabanna network has created a visible impact in new ideas and initiatives such as Sandhya’s beautician’s course, and in the high degree of ownership these women clearly have over their newfound resource.
One of the nine partnership initiatives under UNESCO’s programme on ICTs for poverty eradication, Nabanna’s novel information network enables Baduria women with relatively few opportunities for income and independence to create new spaces, both physical and virtual in which to congregate and learn, as well as new social and technological networks, through which to share information and skills. Interesting things seems to be happening.
The Nabanna network builds from a simple facility in the centre of town where computer training and networking workshops are conducted. ‘Candidates’ of this venture come here to learn and practice using computers to build up skills they require to put their emerging network online. The idea behind Nabanna is to facilitate women using media and ICT tools to communicate- i.e. document, organise, share and use information.
At the front line of the information network are the candidates; all ‘poor’ but with somewhat better educations, a thorough grasp of the Nabanna concept, and now better ICT skills. Each candidate reaches out to ten or so women in her neighbourhood with whom she shares information and ideas emerging from her experience of the Nabanna process. This becomes her information group. The network is animated in part by a regular tabloid newspaper with local features and excerpts from the participant’s diaries, increasingly run by the women themselves.
For instance, it was an ad published gratis in the Nabanna tabloid, expressing Sandhya’s interest in conducting a beautician course, that got her in touch with various interested women from the Baduria community and together they worked to initiate the course. Sandhya is now a member of Manashi Banerjee’s information group and is proactive in the network’s learning and communicating process. Of the 50 rupees she earns from each student, 5 rupees go back to Nabanna.
Though still in its early stages, the Nabanna network has created a visible impact in new ideas and initiatives such as Sandhya’s beautician’s course, and in the high degree of ownership these women clearly have over their newfound resource.
Related themes/countries
· India: News Archive 2004
· Gender and ICT: News Archives 2004
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- UNESCO New Delhi
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