REPLICATING THE MAHAVILACHCHIYA EVILLAGE CONCEPT

by Nandasiri Wanninayaka (Delegate/Sri Lanka, Summit 2008)

Having provided ICT and English education since 1998 to the children of Mahavilachchiya, a village in Anuradhapura, 245 km from Colombo in Sri Lanka, Horizon Lanka is looking for innovative ways to expand its services and bring the benefits of ICT to the adults in the village as well.

The Model eVillage project was officially launched in January 2005 in hopes that by providing parents and other adults in the village with an education in ICT and Internet accessibility at home and at ICT centres, the community will enjoy an improved quality of life through informed decision making.

Recognizing early on that the support of the local community would be intrinsic to the success of such a concept, one of the first steps Horizon Lanka embarked upon was the strengthening of relationships already established within the community.

Horizon Lanka began a series of training sessions and workshops aimed at introducing the community to the concept of an eVillage and familiarizing them with ICT usage and its benefits.

As predicted, since the introduction of the Model eVillage, Mahavilachchiya has seen endless benefits to its community. For instance now, at the click of a button, farmers are able to access agricultural information, weather forecasts, crop prices and market information. They use this to make informed decisions about when to harvest crops and at what price to sell their produce.

The unemployed are able to access information from the multi-media library and the Internet, which significantly broadens and speeds up their employment prospects. The ICT skills learned at the training sessions and practiced regularly at home have been invaluable in securing gainful employment for themselves. The communication link between villagers and others across the country and the world have been enhanced. Presently, with Internet-enabled computers at home and the knowledge on how to use it, families can talk to relatives abroad using webmail and IP telephony services like Skype, all without any cost to themselves.

Perhaps the greatest success of the Model eVillage concept launched by Horizon Lanka has been in transforming village students into IT professionals. Public schools in rural areas have to make do with the barest of resources, which means subjects like ICT are often overlooked. By providing children access to computers and the Internet, they learn to use these tools to improve their standard of work and put them in a competitive with students from urban schools. To ensure that more children in the village benefit from the novel experience, Horizon Lanka has been providing more public schools, temples, and other institutions with computers and Internet access.

Access to bank accounts through the Internet and communication via email have also significantly reduced the inconvenience of travelling to Anuradhapura town to conduct business transactions. Horizon Lanka has made it possible for villagers to do so at home, saving them time and travel costs. Something which has been near impossible in the past is the ability to disseminate information quickly, which is of utmost importance especially in times of crises like national disasters, war or drought. It is hoped that the introduction of ICT will facilitate the flow of information to rural areas. Public information suppliers from NGOs and the government now have better access to rural communities. The community will begin to feel less isolated and become more interested in what is happening to the rest of the country.

Mahavilachchiya became the first rural village to benefit from mesh technology in 2006. Mesh technology has given the whole community wireless access to the Internet from their homes. Since its inception, Horizon Lanka's eVillage concept has furnished over 100 families with used desktop computers. Following up on the unprecedented success achieved in Mahavilachchiya, Horizon Lanka is now able to share its experience, taking ICT to the rural communities of Sri Lanka. The foundation provides consulting services with respect to launching and setting up rural level ICT centers throughout the country. Similar projects are now being replicated island-wide.

But the downside of all these is that, though Horizon Lanka did all these almost impossible tasks, now it is facing many financial problems to take its work forward, and hope those who have the means will chip in to take Horizon Lanka's journey forward.

Wanna is the CEO of Horizon Lanka Foundation. He has found a way to bring modern technology to isolated communities, link villagers to outside networks through the Internet, and use alternative education (with emphasis on the English language) to foster teamwork, creativity and self-esteem among students. He initiated Sri Lanka's first village-level outsourcing venture and is working to establish an e-commerce facility so farmers can avoid middlemen and sell their products at market prices.