a Gift for your progeny...better accept it !!

Do you remember "what did you do last time (and lets say you were on a roadside) when you ate chocolate ..or..charged your mobile with a coupon...or...drank a Pepsi from a can ... or...used anything out of a poisonthene (polythene)....." I hope you do and I wish we all do something about it.

The beginning as always (and will always) has to be from I, and we need only a few I's to change it all and I know you are one of those....

"I cannot run, I cannot hide.... I want to live... Please put me also, behind the cages, as you have done to my dearest friends...I want to live...please "

IT in development projects....

"A bullock cart may still suit best to the village roads..... " 

The statement suits best to the state of IT implementation across development projects in India. Having looked the sector from very close quarters for almost 3 years now, I feel a need to say that it needs a lot more than sheer optimism, for IT to reach the rural masses.

The gory side of the story is this that that IT is being increasingly misused by the opportunists in pseudo-IT-companies who thrive on the 21st century non/semi/neo-IT-literate-development-professionals. All this is happening at the expense of public money and that also money which is meant only to be routed to the most vulnerable section of the society.

The need of the hour is not a forced or whimsical use of IT in development projects -which unfortunately is the most common state of affairs- but a very balanced,systematic and scientific infusion of IT into the two major facets, one for the development professionals and the other for the community, as both have their own sets of challenges and opportunities.

    

My experiences with the last few involvements of mine have taught me a great deal about one more fight I am preparing myself for......and I wish I can make a difference here..... and that is there, the maverick in me for you :)

I wish the road is soon ready for the nextGen vehicles to traverse through the rural realm...  Amen !

Living MIS and computers with the community

“A SHG woman (Smt.Sushila Devi) who felt very shy to reveal her schooling status to begin with, surrounded by people half her age and twice as educated, but determined she was, ended up pounding questions and expalinations rendering insignificance to her qaualifications and spreading a message in the air around, that she was a women with mission and she meant business''

The training of Group Promoters and Data Entry Operators was meant to provide an insight into the accounting needs of the SHGs and use of the existing accounting system in a uniform manner across SHGs in the district and project. The training also delat with the computerised MIS and its applicability in the context of SHGs and federations in future.

The first day of the training involved experience sharing among the participants, the points of discussion involved SHG accounting registers and practical scenarios handling within the same. The excercise not only helped in bringing forth a set of practical copmlicated accounting scenarios to solution using the existing SHG registers but also helped in developing a common debated-and-agreed upon understanding for the same. Practical excercises with the new registers, introduced recently by the project, helped in clearing plentiful of doubts and will help in having an error free accounts management at SHG level.

Second day of training was more oriented towards the computerised SHG MIS, which clusters are working on for 6 months now. Cluster wise problems were collated and lacunaes were identified and noted. A lot of issues related with the MIS were solved and demonstrated during the training.The training ended on the third day with the installation of latest SHG MIS into the cluster systems and detailed explaination and demonstration of the same.

Some of the Group Promoters who came in to the training having never seen the computerised MIS seemed thrilled and excited on being provided an opportunity by the project to get exposed to the MIS.

The training aimed at providing training to the DEOs but more importantly imparting seeds of interest and inquisitiveness among the Group Promoters envisaged as part of a sustainability drive by the project and more women like Sushila Devi will do exactly that.