LATIN AMERICA:
Telecentres for Digital and Social Inclusion

Mario Osava


RIO DE JANEIRO, (IPS) - Access to the Internet offered by public telecentres in Sao Paulo, Brazil is not only helping narrow the digital divide, but also fomenting community life in poor neighbourhoods and providing cultural activities and job opportunities for youngsters at risk of falling into crime.

In a conversation with IPS, Jesulino Alves, 39, a former chemistry industry employee who now works in community telecentres set up by the city government of Sao Paulo, underlined the success of community Internet access centres on two fronts: both digital and social inclusion.

Alves started out as a volunteer, became a technician, and now coordinates several of the telecentres that form part of the initiative by the government of Sao Paulo, the largest city in this country of nearly 180 million, to expand connectivity in poor districts.

Alves speaks enthusiastically of his three-year experience at the telecentre in Cidade Tiradentes, a shantytown of more than 290,000 people that is one of the most populous, poorest and violent neighbourhoods in Sao Paulo.

The local telecentre ''revitalised a previously run-down, crime-ridden area'' and gave new life to several institutions as well, such as the association of community residents, the disabled people's association, a health clinic, and local shops and businesses, he said.

A daily average of around 180 people visit the telecentre in Cidade Tiradentes, to take courses or use the computers with broadband connection to the Internet.

The people who visit the library that operates in the same locale brings the total daily number of visitors to 250, said Alves.

Sixty percent of those who use the telecentres are under 16 -- an age group that is at risk of falling into drug use or crime. One example of the initiative's social impact is Cleber, an adolescent who had two brothers in prison, and whose life took a different direction thanks to the telecentre.

''He was first a visitor to the telecentre, then became a volunteer, and now he has been hired as a monitor, has acquired programming skills, and even offers his services to companies,'' said Alves.

The city government has already installed 106 telecentres in poor neighbourhoods, serving around 380,000 local residents. A total of 80,000 people have so far taken courses on basic computer skills, creating web sites, digital art and image processing.

But in a city the size of Sao Paulo, which has a population of over 10 million, one-third of whom lack access to computer technology, the ideal would be to have at least 800 telecentres, said Carlos Afonso, director of planning and strategy in the Information Network for the Third Sector (RITS).

RITS helped organise the Week for Social Inclusion in Sao Paulo, which involved four parallel events last week.

The May 27-29 Third Latin American Conference on Telecentres closed the week of activities, which also included the National Conference on Brazilian Telecentres, a Workshop on Social Inclusion and the Electronic Government Forum.

But Sao Paulo is a positive example, like the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, which also has a policy on digital inclusion, and has installed its own fiber optic network, Afonso told IPS.

Porto Alegre is well-known for its ''participatory budget'' in which community assemblies help make decisions on public spending, and the telecentres have expanded the possibilities of social participation in decision-making, he noted.

Afonso's dream is to tour the country to convince the mayors of all cities of more than 100,000 of the advantages of creating telecentre networks in poor communities. The costs are low, while the benefits, which include the generation of employment opportunities, are huge, he said.

The Brazilian government plans to install 6,000 telecentres throughout the country by 2007, announced the Planning Ministry's secretary of information technology Rogerio Santanna.

The computers to be installed in telecentres, schools, public libraries and other institutions serving local communities will come from a programme for recycling old computers donated by private and public companies.

A regional association, Red Somos@Telecentros (We Are Telecentres Network), was formally created at last week's meeting, and its coordinators were elected.

Community participation is indispensable for the success of projects aimed at social inclusion like the telecentres, underscored representatives of several countries at the conference, who shared the experiences of their countries.

In Mexico there have been successes as well as failures in the Digital Community Centres, created as part of a government initiative with participation by society, said Gilberto Kapleman.

Julián Casabuenas of Colombia, meanwhile, blamed the closing of two centres on an overly profit-oriented, ''commercial'' vision.

As in Sao Paulo, the initiatives carried out by other countries do not only focus on connectivity. Visitors to a telecentre in Peru, for example, must first read for at least 15 minutes in the local library each time they want to use a computer.