An Introduction

To combat poverty on our planet, one has to eradicate hunger, disease and lack of education (ignorance). The biggest problem with this task is that rigid social structures, that promote poverty, have to be changed on national, regional and local levels. Often it is the fear of the unknown that keeps these structures in place despite their damaging effects. On the other hand, curiosity, creativity and pride in one’s own achievements are natural impulses that must be harnessed to promote development. Such development is one of the few real chances of improving living standards of communities in marginalised rural areas (MRAs), as these communities have to combat unemployment and massive lack of infrastructure.

Our Vision

New innovative computing technologies and a new way of using the Internet provide MRAs with the opportunity of greatly speeding up the development process. Besides offering community members unlimited access to information and communication, these technologies allow them to present themselves to the world as they would like to be seen. With this newfound knowledge comes the ability to solve their own problems, self-confidence and an awareness of responsibility. This enables nothing less than the demarginalisation of these areas: children can be assisted in their learning and people can be motivated to remain in their communities and improve them, preventing the brain drain of these areas; integration of these areas in the governmental processes of the country can occur; access to services and access to broader markets for their produce and goods is enabled; unemployment is reduced and living standards rise with increasing income levels. The communities are thus empowered to begin their own projects to address their own needs. They have the tools to obtain the means to carry these projects out successfully.

Our Approach

The Village Scribe Association advocates the responsible and practical use of ICTs. We therefore wish to support carefully selected practical projects and activities of various agencies that bring MRAs into the knowledge society, which meet our criteria and make use of synergy effects among each other to maximize results.

Please, click here if you are interested in detailed introductions about the concepts of the Village Scribe Association and ICT4D in general.

Project Reports

1. The Predessecor The Solar School Computer Project
   

2. The first Project The ECSPIRT Project
   

3. Following Projects The Village Scribe Project (incl. the eGovernment and eCommerce Project)
   

An example of a marginalised rural area in the former Transkei.

Demonstration of an OLPC-Laptop

at the Mndwaka JSS by

eKhaya ICT for Swiss SF.TV.