Date Tue, 15 Feb 2000 12:14:46 -0400
From: Lionel GERMOSEN-ROBINEAU<[email protected]>

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS A NON EDITED MACHINE TRANSLATION FROM THE ORIGINAL IN FRENCH

THE FOLLOWING TEXT HAS BEEN WRITEN BY INTER PRESS SERVICE <[email protected]> AND FORWARDED TO LISTA MISTICA BY LIONEL GERMOSEN-ROBINEAU

Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000,
From: Inter Press Service <[email protected]>
Subject: INTERNET - SENEGAL: Inhabitants of shanty towns rush on the Internet

By Adel Arab

DAKAR, 10 Feb. (IPS) - inhabitants of shanty towns of Dakar, the Senegalese capital, become more and more hooked of the New Technologies of information and the Communication (NICT) that were, a few years ago, a true mystery for these underprivileged populations.

No one would have thought, indeed, that the NICTS, notably the Internet, that was not long ago the appendage of the big centers of research soldieries, universities and certain agencies of press, would be part of the daily of shanty town inhabitants one day.

In the most underprivileged districts of Dakar, craftsmen, the small recuperators, the domestic women rush etc. on computers, in quest of information or look for to communicate to least costs with countries of overseas.

Henceforth, terms, previously mysterious and complicated, as ''computer'', ''electronic mail'', ''Internet '', are demythologized and tame by the slice the more resourceless and underprivileged of the Senegalese population.

Inhabitants of shanty towns began to familiarize itself/themselves with the Internet since close to two years, thanks to the ''Cyberpop" project insider by the no - governmental organization (NGO) Enda Third-world, in partnership with the Canadian Center of development and Internationales(CRDI research).

The project installed 8 Internet centers, called Communal Resource Center (CRC), distribute between the urban and out-of-town zones of Dakar. Every center functions according to a theme that has been defined from needs of populations concerned and of the different shanty town nature.

According to Ibrahima Thiam, administrator of a CRC, the number of adepts of the NICTS in his district increases every day thanks to the work of sensitization led by administrators of the CRC by the concerned populations.

''It proves that populations become more and more convinced of the utility of the NICTS in their daily '' confirms him.

In the CRC that manages Thiam women decided to valorize the small professions that they practise while exploiting opportunities that offer the Internet in depth.

Sagna fop, the chairwoman of the Economic interest Grouping (GIE) consider the Internet like a magnificent inexhaustible source of information of the commercial women of the Collobane district.

"When one wants to develop an idea, one only has to consult the Internet to have a multitude of solutions. The Internet stays an excellent means of himself d�senclaver'', she affirms.

Sagna and her GIE, that gather in migrating woman majority, intend to create an Internet site in order to develop their economic activities, while doing the local product promotion as the ni�b� - a variety of bean -, the thousand, the peanut... as good on a national scale that international. Their site will be soon available on Internet.

However, their ambitions don't confine themselves to the only activities of agricultural product promotion coming from their villages.

"We intend to find some local and foreign economic partners via Internet, and to share our experiences with other women who practise the same profession that us on the continent and in other countries of the world" she confides to IPS.

Otherwise, agents of various material retraining and craftsmen, with the technical support of administrators of the CRCS, consider exposing their products on a site that they are conceiving.

Fatou Seye, administrator of another site situated in one shanty town, explains that a bank of data concerning the domestic women, majority in the district, was clarification and that it will be put soon at the disposal of internauts.

"The creation of a Web page to the domestic woman attention would facilitate considerably, for them, the job hunting and would expose them less to the bad treatments of employers and the humiliation'', it explains.

'' So, families anxious to hire a housewife will only have to consult our site to choose the one of it that their convient'', she adds.

After Seye, this manner to proceed is going to not only allow housewives to manage their profession better but also of good to organize themselves.

After having received a formation of initiation to techniques of the data processing housewives, of which take care Seye, have the intention to create a Network of information and solidarity via Internet.

''This network will allow them to weave ties with women being in the same situation, inside and outside of the country, and to speak of their problems, notably of their rights, often bafou�s'', it says.

According to administrators of the CRCS the Internet is not the only service valued by populations. Inhabitants of shanty towns solicit the CRCS regularly etc. for the works of word processors, the development of estimates, the invoicing, the electronic mail consignment,

''Les NICTS are transforming the daily of shanty town inhabitants, to improve their way to work and to widen their vision of the world. They don't consider them anymore as a luxury but like an opportunity to exploit to the maximum '', affirm Daba Ndao, administrator of a CRC.

"The adapatation of the Internet to needs of bidonvilloises and the appropriation of techniques of the NICTS by these populations, could accelerate and encourage a better development while reducing the gap concerning information between affluent and d�munis'', explains Oumar Tandian, co - coordinating of the Cyberpop project. (FIN/IPS/aa/nrn/00)

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Last modified:18/02/2000