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A. R. Thiagarajan
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Our experience in Pondicherry shows that OKN has the potential to bring out the enormous hidden and fading knowledge available in Indian villages, which will be very useful for the future generation and humanity.
In November 2003, Open Knowledge Network (OKN) was launched with OneWorld International, Foundation, through its South Asia office in New Delhi. The OKN is a human network which collects, shares, disseminates local knowledge and seeks to contribute knowledge about traditional agricultural practices, news about agricultural technology, health, government schemes, government announcements, local news, weather, market price, education, and other general affairs and events.
By virtue of the infrastructure available, the existing Knowledge Centres in the ten villages in and around Pondicherry, are functioning as access points with Villianur as the main hub. The volunteers at these access points have been requested to spend more time with the local people to collect local content. Some of the subject areas they have been asked to concentrate on include water, energy, health, agriculture, biodiversity and environment. Additionally, they also collect locally available content related to traditional health practices, agriculture practices, local events, etc.
Unfortunately, conventional knowledge passed on for generations between local elders, including information on many traditional technologies, arts, cultural heritage, etc., remains largely unrecorded. Such information can often prove to be very useful, cost-effective and locally relevant.
OKN, a novel information library of local content has now been made available to the outside world to now and to learn from local wisdom. With more and more people visiting community Access Points (APs), there is a great opportunity to share local knowledge on vital issues. Recognising the diversity and richness of initiatives to collect and disseminate local content, OKN represents an attempt to join the dots, in order to increase the capacity and impact of such endeavours. It is thought of as a flexible framework to link information initiatives among marginalised communities through shared standards and values for local content, local people and local language.
The content thus collected by the volunteers is uploaded from their respective APs and sent to the hub. The content received at the hub is scrutinised by the content manager and thereafter edited and eligible content is published online.
It has been felt in some quarters that the online publication of OKN content may not serve any useful purpose as it does not reach 90 per cent of its target audience due to a lack of Internet facilities. Hence, it was decided to employ a community newspaper to facilitate the delivery of OKN content to the people. This newspaper is published fortnightly by an editorial committee of volunteers from the Information Village Research Project of the, M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Villianur, Pondicherry. An additional sheet is attached to this newspaper to carry OKN contents exclusively. This newspaper is circulated among 60,000 people of Pondicherry. The response of the public has engendered similar radio initiatives for wider coverage. While the newspaper covers areas inand around Pondicherry, the Radio programme is spread out wider in Tamil Nadu.
OKNs radio programmes, broadcast through All India Radio, Pondicherry, have reached far down south of Tamil Nadu. These programmes are produced with the help of local volunteers and are on-air, every Saturday at 8.30 am. Till date, 43 programmes have been broadcast amidst encouraging response from the audience.
OKN helps in building up on traditional knowledge and resources by providing a platform for exchange and dissemination of information. The following are some of the initiatives the OKN is currently involved in:
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Promoting business opportunities through its Sale/ Wanted News items
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Helping the youth with information on employment opportunities through Employment News
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Helping the farmers and fishermen plan their days by disseminating timely weather information
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Helping the farmers gain a better price for their agricultural products by providing the day to day price index from three regulated markets managed by the Farmers Society. Also offers information about the stock availability of seeds, biopesticides, bio-fertilisers at the government agency PASIC (Pondicherry Agro Service and Industrial Corporation) during the crop seasons.
The impact of OKN can be felt in the large number of success stories that have already begun pouring in:
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Anjalakshi, a married lady in Embalam village and also an expert in knitting had no way of using her expertise. Through an OKN publication in the Wanted column, she was able to get an offer in Pondicherry town to teach knitting. Through her employer, she managed to obtain more job orders, by which she is now able to generate income for her family.
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Our volunteers have collected a lot of information about local traditional knowledge on health and medical practices from Mangalakshmi, an expert in medicine in Embalam village. One such native treatment has permanently cured a lady who was suffering from certain menstrual disorders.
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Radhakrishnan, a progressive farmer of Embalam village found information on a Neem mixture published through OKN, tried it in his field as bio-pesticide and found it to be quite effective.
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A sale item, male Tellicherry breed of goat which was published in OKN online, has helped a farmer to procure the same.
Thus one observes how OKN works to revive traditional knowledge in agriculture and health practices. At the same time, it is also useful in helping the villagers to enhance their income. Our experience in Pondicherry shows that OKN has the potential to bring out the enormous hidden and fading knowledge available in Indian villages, which will be very useful for the future generation and humanity
Author: A. R. Thiagarajan is the Content Manager, Open Knowledge Network in Tamil Nadu, India.
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