Here you will find personal stories related to how ICTs have affected, and are still affecting, the lives of the communities involved in the projects we support.

SchoolNet South Africa: Accessing a World of Learning 2001-01-26
Sizwe Ngcobo is a 17-year old special-needs student attending a school for the mentally disabled in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. He is Zulu-speaking and, until just over a year ago, had never seen a computer. Last year, Sizwe gained international recognition for the artwork he contributed to a collaborative student-designed web site that earned a silver medal in the ThinkQuest competition, an annual Internet challenge.

Gender Sensitivity and the Acacia National Strategy for Senegal 2000-07-12
Facilitating access to, and exploitation of, information and communication technologies (ICTs) for marginalized communities, especially women and youth: this is the main objective of IDRC's Acacia Initiative, which has launched a project to ensure massive representation of women in all aspects of the program, and to incorporate gender sensitivity into the design, implementation and evaluation of projects that are part of the Initiative.

From the Rural Village to the Global Village 2000-06-28
Of all the projects under the umbrella of the Acacia Initiative in Senegal, the Village Land Management and Rehabilitation Project seems best to merit the label 'revolutionary'. This is not so much because of the technical resources employed, but because of its target community — rural people — and the effort to bring information and communication technologies within reach of people generally left out by traditional modernization policies.

Linking Computers and Community Organizations in Senegal 2000-06-21
How can community organizations successfully exploit the new information and communication technologies (ICTs)? That is the issue confronting Rabia Abdelkrim Chikh, an anthropologist and researcher with Enda Ecopole in Senegal. As leader of a project that aims to demystify computers for young people in some of the most crowded neighbourhoods of Dakar and its outskirts, and make them a commonplace work tool, she has had some success.

Software to Manage Vital Statistics and Municipal Budgets 2000-06-14
Municipalities in Senegal will soon have the solution to a puzzle: how to manage their budgets, an area where their performance has sometimes been deficient. Using budget and vital statistics management software developed by SAFEFOD, a Senegalese NGO, local communities will have the means to efficiently keep track of their financial resources and to manage vital statistics records.

Promoting Women's Participation in Kenya's Governance 1999-09-17
A research team in Kenya is training rural women to access information via computers. The team's ultimate goal is to help increase women's participation in the democratic process. "Because Kenyan women are poor, they get manipulated during voting," says Professor Shanyisa Khasiani, Executive Director of the Nairobi-based Family Support Institute, which is implementing the project with funding from IDRC.

Improving Access to Telecommunications in South Africa 1998-08-21
The Universal Service Agency (USA) is opening telecentres in South Africa to improve access to phone, fax, and computer services among disadvantaged and underserviced communities. The USA is supported by two IDRC projects that aim to assess the impacts of telecentres on local communities, and evaluate their potential role in achieving universal access.