Case study summary report
Published Nocember 10, 2003
By Maartje Op de Coul
Introduction
OneWorld is part of the Building Digital Opportunities programme sponsored by the British, Swiss, Dutch and Canadian governments. One of the elements in this programme is an ICT survey that aims "to give decision makers a clear understanding of how civil society is actually using ICT and its impact through a comprehensive study". It was decided that could be done best through a number of case studies on different uses of ICTs. Throughout the different studies "impact" is considered in terms of opportunity, empowerment and security(1).
The present study focuses on the use and impact of ICTs by a community radio station in rural Sri Lanka. Kothmale Community Radio has and Internet Project through which information from the internet is used for their radio programmes, internet access is offered to the community and people are trained in the use of several ICT applications.
About Kothmale
Kothmale Community Radio (KCR) is one of five community radio stations operating under the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC). It is located in the central region of Sri Lanka in Mawathura, which is about 25km South West of Kandy. The surrounding area is green and mountainous and is primarily a rural region with tea and rice being the dominant plantations.
Kothmale started transmission in 1989, broadcasting only one hour a week from a mobile station. In 1992 the mobile station became a permanent one with 3 broadcasting hours on every working day. Now there are programs every day for 8 hours in the mornings and evenings. These are produced by a team of relief announcers (12), permanent staff (6) and a whole lot of enthusiastic volunteers.
In the morning the programs are commercial and have local news. In the evening they are more development orientated, covering topics like education, agriculture, health, religion, science, youth and women etc. Most of the programs are in Singhalese, but they also broadcast in Tamil and English (for educational purposes).
Kothmale covers about 30% of Sri Lanka and estimates to reach 30.000 listeners though they can?t measure the number of listeners. They do however receive a lot of letters and phone calls from listeners; on a daily basis about 40-50 letters and 20 phone calls. They also organize three monthly listeners meetings to obtain feed back from the audience and see what they would like to see changed in the programming.
There are several interactive programs, for instance on Sunday where listeners can ask questions to political leaders or another very popular one where listeners can exchange messages with each other.
Internet radio
In 1999 the UNESCO funded Kothmale Community Radio Internet Project was launched ?to assess the prospects for converging community radio and the internet to serve rural information needs and to assess its possible impact in rural communities?. In order to make the internet accessible to a wide rural audience, KCR started to include information from the internet in its radio programs.
One of such programs is broadcast on Friday evening and presented by two lawyers. In the beginning of the week the lawyers provide KCR program maker Anil with the headlines for that week. Anil then searches the internet for useful information which the lawyers then translate in the program. One of those lawyers, Mr Abekon, explains that the added value of using the internet for this program is that traditional and modern information can be compared and the same goes for information from Sri Lanka and abroad. ?That is how we try to sandwich this information in between?. Mr Abekon only remembers one occasion on which no information could be found on the internet. This was when they wanted to talk about the history of printing in different parts of the world. The Friday night internet program is quite popular and there are about 50 (mostly elderly) permanent listeners actively involved in a kind of listeners network, among them teachers and priests. ?What will happen if a priest listens to the program? In his sermon he will in turn disperse these ideas. So, we have been able to create pockets of informants who in turn will redistribute this information?.
Another program that is based on information from the net is the International News program on Wednesday night, presented by Sriyapali. She relies on international news sites like the BBC, CNN, ABC and uses Yahoo! for the weather forecasts. Although the majority of the listeners lives in a remote area in Sri Lanka they are very much interested in international matters. One of the reasons is that many people in the region have family members working in Arabic countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrein and Dubai. ?It once happened that two men who were living abroad sent an e-mail to Kothmale because they wanted to find their mother they hadn?t seen for 20 years. We asked the mother to contact us and helped her send e-mails to her sons?.
Part of the international news is also information about exchange rates and national market prices that the National Bank of Colombo sends to Sriyapali weekly. For the farmers in the region this information is of utmost importance because ?they can?t fool farmers anymore?. One of the farmers who listens to the program states that ?since the program was first broadcast the prices have increased in different villages?.
Another good example of the use of internet and radio gives Sriyapali: ?One day we received 750 calls, because at that day exam results were published on the internet. We broadcast the results on the radio and informed the people who called by phone. Normally the results have to come from Colombo and that takes 4 days?.
Access points
Part of the KCR Internet Project was also to establish several internet access points. Three of those access points were realized, one at the radio station itself, one in Nawalapithia town hall and one in the library of Gompola (the biggest town nearby).
In Kothmale there is at the moment one computer with internet access available for the public. Access is through a 64kb leased line with Global Link and costs them Rs 30.000 (about usd 300) a month. It is accessible every day between 8.00 and 17.00 and in its heyday it was very popular. Tanya Notley, and Australian volunteer who helped setting up the Internet Project, remembers "we had something like 10 people minimally a day with many large groups of school children. They traveled, on average, more than and hour to come, but they came! Young people had been reading about the internet for so long and they came with this incredible enthusiasm and awe".
KCR recently started to charge the public for access, but mainly in relation to training. Costs for 4 hours are Rs 100 for children and Rs 150 for employed people. This, combined with the fact that many of the computers have gone down, has caused a gradual downfall in visitors. The number of users is now only estimated at about 20 a month, though there are still young people learning Excel and chatting on the PC that is still online.
The remoteness of the radio station is mentioned as an obstacle to come to the access point there as well(2). Nawalapithia and Gompola are more favourably located but at this moment both have ceased to be public access points. Iresha, who runs the access point in Gompola (that turns out not to be located in the library anymore but in the much less accessible office of the Urban Council), says that they used to have about 10 visitors a day, mainly children and office people. E-mail was used most by them. After the UNESCO funding stopped in 2000 however, the PC was no longer accessible for the public and now it is used as an office computer in the Urban Council. Iresha, who was trained with the rest of the Kothmale team to operate the public access point, is now comparable to a secretary for the Urban Council. She says she ?types circulaires and about once a week people come to use the e-mail?. The computer in Nawalapithia is still working, but there is no internet access anymore.
UNESCO is aware that so much of the equipment needs repair or isn?t anymore used by the people it was intended to be used by. They stopped their funding until KCR would submit to them an inventory of the technical problems. That has been done recently and hopefully this will lead to improvement, either supported by UNESCO or another donor.
Training
Along with the access points Kothmale also offers a 3 months training course, now only still working at the radio station access point. The course teaches introduction tot the computer, windows (word, excel, powerpoint, access) and internet and e-mail. Students are mainly children who in Sri Lanka always have to wait three months for their exams results. Kothmale computer courses fill that gap with 4 hours theory class and 1 hour practical.
The course is quite popular; the first batch was attended by 70 people and the second by 65. Reason for its popularity according to Sriyapali: ?they want to have a job in IT and there are many computer jobs in Sri Lanka?. About 60-70% of the students are girls who will probably use their computer skills as a qualification for a non-technical job. The teachers are volunteers who are trained by Kothmale staff.
Students are charged Rs 700 (usd 7) whereas the market rates are around Rs 5000 for courses that lasts 6 months. The income from the courses covers about one third of the monthly costs for internet access.
Another type of training offered by Kothmale is in making small publications. This course takes place in the Mediacenter in Nawalapithia and is funded by Hivos. Students are selected by the Urban Council and are trained how to use Corell Draw. The first batch started in June 2002, lasted 6 months and had 100 students (4 groups of 25). The second batch is a 3 months one and has only 25 students. Every week there is 2 hours theory and one hour practical training and during the course people can come in to get support whenever they want.
The small publication course has the character of vocational training as most students are between 18 and 22 and they hope to increase their chances on the labour market by obtaining the certificate of the Kothmale Mediacenter. But apart from 4 ex-students who have become (voluntary) teachers now, it is not sure if anyone else has yet found a job. ?The others are waiting for jobs, but there are not many jobs here? says Sashika Lasantha Fernandes, one of the teachers. They don?t have much contact with the students after the training, but the evaluations forms say that 99% of the students (50% male and 50% female) are satisfied with the course.
At the moment only 2 out of 3 PCs are working, the colour printer needs a new cartridge and the scanner has temporarily moved to the manager's office somewhere else in town. The project ends in March 2003 and is it not sure they can stay in the same venue after March, which makes the future of the Mediacenter quite insecure. Hivos has said to be willing to continue but only after having received the report of the past project. ?The manager has to send the report and I don?t know when he is going to do that? says Sashika. The fact that the co-manager, who helped setting up the Medialab, has left seems one of the reasons for the current difficulties. "This center was, and could be again, very very useful for training young people and probably completely sustainable" according to Tanya Notley.
One last initiative Kothmale started recently is computer awareness building. Every month the KCR team takes a computer to a different village to gain the interest of the people. The first time about 300 to 500 villagers showed up and the initiative will be followed up by a training course in the local temple.
Lessons learned, impact and sustainability
Looking back to my visit to Kothmale Community Radio and the talks I had with a great number of people involved, I have mixed feelings. The KCR Internet Project has been globally promoted as one of the "ICT for development" success stories which is why my expectations were quite high. However, at the time of my (short) visit about 2 years after the heyday, it was hard to get a feel of the successes that have actually been booked in the past. One of the reasons of failing to get the historical perspective may be that many of the people who implemented the Internet Project were not there anymore at the time of my visit. Fortunately Tanya Notley has been willing to provide me with the necessary historical perspective. When concluding on impact and sustainability of the KCR Internet Project I will try to be balanced between what I saw myself and what I have heard and read has happened.
Kothmale Community Radio undoubtedly plays an important role in the region. It wasn?t hard at all to reach the radio station from Colombo, because many people know about it. It succeeds to attract a great number of volunteers, young and old, and gives them the opportunity to develop all kinds of skills. One example is Mr Weijrantha who is a seller for the national lottery board and tunes in on KCR on the street. He now has a 30 min. radio program on film music and sometimes announces the lottery results on Kothmale radio. He enjoys to be involved because ?now I have more friends around Sri Lanka and my writing and poems for the radio bring back memories from my childhood?.
Internet radio
At the time of my visit, the internet radio seemed to be the most successful part of the KCR Internet project, both in terms of impact and of sustainability. The impact on the listeners is that their general knowledge is updated and broadened and thus they are empowered. This knowledge is regarding international affairs, health and market prices but also about history and ?how to put on make-up?. One listener says ?I don?t know the internet and I don?t have time for it but I like the internet program because it gives me more news from around the world?.
The internet radio is pretty sustainable as the producers of the internet programs do not have to put in extra energy or money. In fact for many of the programs producers search the internet for content and it has improved their programs. The internet now is an integrated part of program production and therefore sustainable at least as long as the station continues to be online?
Access points
The internet access points have turned out to be little sustainable and as they didn?t work at the time I visited I can only refer to other studies and experiences to get to the impact on the users. Tanya above all mentions the fact that the access points have helped so many young people to gain skills that have proven to be of vital use for their future, thus creating a lot of opportunities. "Very few of my students had ever seen a computer. Now they are designing websites and they can make databases and they just never ever would have this opportunity otherwise."
Now, this impact of the access points is still there, but it is more or less limited to the many volunteers working for KCR. Their computer, English and general knowledge has improved. Besides, the contact with people from outside the region and even the country (mainly through chat) has empowered them. Sriyapali, the producer of the Wednesday internet programme says ?I am a good example myself. The chat has made me more independent and I chose my own husband. He works in business whereas my parents wanted someone working for the government?.
Training
The training activities are sustainable in the sense that now they are all offered by volunteers that were trained by Kothmale first. The fees paid by the students may cover the small costs and do contribute to the expenses of being online. The direct impact (opportunity), for instance in terms of people finding a job because of the training, is hard to measure. In the Kothmale region there is a scarcity of non-agricultural jobs. On the other hand, more and more jobs ask computer skills and in the bigger cities like nearby Kandy more computer jobs are available(3).
Conclusions
In summary it seems reasonable to say that the KCR Internet Project has definitely had its impact, mostly in terms of empowerment and opportunity. However, visiting the different centres now, it turns out that there is a sustainability problem, both financially and with regard to human resources.
It?s hard to tell who is ?to blame?. At first sight one would say: after UNESCO stopped its funding, the access points gradually failed to function and the equipment broke down. On the other hand, UNESCO?s bid for an inventory of all technical problems before starting to fund again isn?t unreasonable. The same goes for Hivos? requirement to first see the results of the first term before giving any follow-up funding. It only shows that to deal with donors also requires a certain level of awareness and capacity from the receiving organisation. The fact that KCR is almost entirely running on volunteers and low paid staff, that is likely to leave if a better opportunity shows up, doesn?t help. Having one professional technical person would probably have solved the majority of the problems and making an inventory wouldn?t have been such a big issue.
However, in their study Slater, Tacchi and Lewis point out that the dependency of KCR on the Sri Lankan Broadcasting Corporation is an even bigger obstacle to financial and personnel sustainability. In the first place, SLBC has put a limit to the number of hours and salary level of the relief announcers who are the back bone of the radio station. Though these announcers are highly committed to the radio station, at some point they understandably want to move on. Salary becomes more important as well as many of them enter the phase of starting families.
In the second place, all possible profits made by KCR have to be transferred back to SLBC. Of course that doesn't stimulate KCR to find out ways towards more financial sustainability. For an admirably long time the leading persons within KCR have been able to deal with these and other restrictions and made it a success despite SLBC bureaucracy. Staff even has to ask permission to spend money from their budgets... Understandably by now their patience has been tempted too much and many of them have left. The project was simply never really owned by Kothmale and its community.
The radio station has gone through fluctuations before and there has been some restructuring in the SLBC, so things might turn to the positive again. That seems to depend on a good strategic and financial plan for which some external help is probably needed.
Footnotes
(1) According to the Worldbank World Development Report 2000/2001, http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/report/
(2) In their "Study of Kothmale Community Radio Internet Project, Sri Lanka" Slater, Tacchi and Lewis explain that the remote site of the radio station was consciously chosen with the intention to really serve the rural community. It is not easy to conclude whether or not this was a successful way to go about it. See p. 35-37.
(3) Slater, Tacchi and Lewis address the job opportunity issue extensively in their study. They point at the fact that in Sri Lanka formal education is still a necessity to get a job. As a result, a lot of informal experience through "learning by doing", as happens at KCR, doesn't really increase the opportunity to get a formal career.
Resources
http://www.kothmale.net/kcrwebsite/english/kothmale_fm_internet_project.htm
http://www.kothmale.net/new/about_the_station.htm
"Ethnographic Monitoring and Evaluation of Community Multimedia Centres. Study of Kothmale Community Radio Internet Project, Sri Lanka", Don Slater, Jo Tacchi, Peter Lewis, September 2002
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