Project Detail

Big Opportunities for Small Communities: Enabling rural ICT access through solar PVs.

RESO has been working since 2010 to educate communities on the use of computers and ICTs, and provide access and services throughout the country.This project is meant to develop a site that can be a model for other similar communities to follow. As there are many communities that do not have access to electricity, efforts to showcase solar energy connected to ICTs can trigger activities that address these issues and bring about quality education to rural school students and people in the surrounding communities. Other project activities will include instructing people in the surrounding communities in the use of computers and the internet. Local technicians and businesses will be trained to install and maintain the solar energy system for the school. Through demonstrating the benefits of solar energy to the community, it is expected that there will be increased demand for solar home systems and resulting work for these technicians and businesses.

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Project Snapshot

Grantee:

Renewable Energy Solutions

Country:

Sierra Leone

Area Of Work:

Climate Change Mitigation

Operational Phase:

OP5-Y3 (Jul 13 - Jun 14)

Grant Amount:

US$ 25,116.00

Co-Financing Cash:

US$ 3,000.00

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 5,000.00

Project Number:

SLE/SGP/OP5/STAR/ CC/14/02/041

Start Date:

3/2014

End Date:

9/2014

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

Project Characteristics and Results

Gender Focus

As part of RESO?s gender mainstreaming strategy, the project will improve women?s livelihoods by supporting the adoption of appropriate clean energy products and services that would be used for domestic and commercial purposes, secured through income surpluses generated by committee managing ICT centre. This attention to gender issues has remained a core RESO strategy for improving development effectiveness and project efficiency.

Capacity - Building Component

ICT related training will be provided, focusing on three main areas: ? Provide ICT-based training to beneficiaries since they lack the knowledge and skills necessary to use and benefit from different ICT based tools. ? Engage in creating local ICT support. The lack of local support is one of the key challenges that rural ICT centres presently face. In order to overcome this challenge, ICT related training should focus on creating a local pool of people who can provide support to both the ICT centre and to the increasing number of computers and ICT based equipment in rural areas. ? Continuously update and upgrade ICT related skills of the staff. In order to be able to provide quality customer service, the staff of the ICT centre will need to keep current with new developments in the ICT field.

Notable Community Participation

Rural ICT centers can become sustainable given time and appropriate support. The time needed will mainly depend on two factors: ? The level of ICT awareness of the general population both in terms of using the ICT based tools and the potential benefits of the ICT tools, and ? The presence of reliable and relevant local content (both in content and format). In order to transform the access to computers and internet into meaningful and sustainable usage, there is a need for: ? Awareness of the presence of the ICTs in the community (to be addressed through the promotion of the ICT centre), ? Awareness of the use and the benefits of ICTs (to be addressed through training, information sessions), and ? Awareness of the existence of reliable and relevant local content (to be addressed through promotion, information sessions, etc)

Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods

Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment

Strategic partnerships will be explored for engaging the wider community and maximizing project benefits. This project will establish three types of partnerships: ? Partnership with non-competing businesses (i.e. partnership with the community radio so the ICT centre can provide content for one or more of the programmes that the community radio broadcasts. The community radio could provide free advertisement for the ICT centre in return. ? Partnership with interested parties to use the services, and ? Partnerships to aggregate demand for connectivity and share resources, i.e. with existing local, national or international NGOs operating in the community, community health centres, local government, businesses, etc.

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