The Palung Story

This article appeared in the Nepali Times
http://www.nepalnews.com.np/ntimes/august31-6-2001/computers.htm

The Palung Story

A computer and a radio tower in Makwanpur in Nepal get young people talking and planning—for their future, and that of their village.

by Gaurab Raj Upadhaya

PALUNG, Makwanpur - IT this, IT that. It is even in the UNDP’s latest Human Development Report. There has been endless debate the world over recently about democratising access to information technology, but few examples are given of development agencies figuring out where they stand on the issue—and trying to make it work. We followed one such story in Nepal.

Palung is in Makwanpur district, near Daman, about a five-hour drive south- east of Kathmandu. It is an ordinary sort of small town. And yet something in it stands out—its four-year-old audio tower. The Community Communication Program (CCP) has been operating the tower as well as a communication centre for the Village Development Committee (VDC) since 1997.

Mandate for the Future (MTF), a global Internet youth forum, wanted to make information technology accessible to young people across the world—including in Nepal—to empower them by helping them understand the world and times they live in. Mandate for the Future, together with Worldview International Foundation, decided to set up communication centres including Internet access across the country, two in Nawalparasi, one in Dang, one in Dhulikhel, and another in Palung. For Palung, they found an ideal partner in CCP, and began the program here last November.

What makes the project interesting is that technology is used as a tool—the community decides to what end—and not simply an end in itself. First, youths from different neighbourhoods, were picked to act as leaders and initiate discussion on what access to computers and the Internet would mean to them. Realising that they could decide the project’s agenda, says one youth leader, is why they all got interested in the project in the first place. "We were not asked to do things," he said, "but instead asked what we wanted to do." Later, they wrote stories about how they understand the village and its people. These stories will soon be put on the web (www.mandatethefuture.org), and read by other young people across the world leading, the project hopes, to better opportunities for networking and collaboration.

Eventually, they started figuring out what work was needed in their area and tried to fine tune their own suggestions with information on the subject they found online. Anyone in the area can use the computer, and at any time. It is also a great alternative to expensive long-distance telephone calls, and the CCP has also decided to install a printer.
Participants agree overwhelmingly that more than anything else the project has given them a sense of the value of communication within their own community. One young woman said this was the first time she realised that she could discuss matters that affected the quality of her life with older people, and that they would listen.

All this did not start with computers, though, but with the audio tower. The tower was useful enough earlier, broadcasting news and local announcements, but after discussing the possibilities of the technology they already had, the youth of Palung have diversified and increased programming to include advice and discussion on sanitation, community health and agriculture.