ICT OILS WHEELS OF DEVELOPMENT
In today’s world, Information Communication Technology (ICT) is the single biggest driver of development. We live in a knowledge based society where virtually way societal issue of consequence is directly linked to advances in Science and Technology that continues to define who we are and how well we live. Equally significant is how we choose to use the knowledge we create. The key is to generate knowledge, not just for its own sake but also for the sake of spurring innovation and then applying at least a portion of that innovation to addressing critical human needs.
After all, we are not only living in a world of unprecedented change, driven largely by Science and Technology, but also confront the stark reality of our everyday life. ICT must not only be used to satisfy human curiosity. They must also be used to help satisfy the basic needs of marginalized citizens.
To borrow the leaf expressed by G8 leaders in a broad statement of intent which they endorsed at the G8 2006 summit held in St. Petersburg , Russia , last July. “We will promote the global innovation society by developing and integrating all three elements of the knowledge triangle (Education, Research and Innovation). We will do so by investing fully in people, skills and research, and by supporting the modernization of education systems to become more relevant to the news of a global based society”.
At this juncture in Malawi, one would not hesitate, but concur with G8 leaders proclamation, looking at the current ICT advances, as gone are the days when people had to rely on top areas sitting there beating drums, resounding trumpets and blowing whistles in announcing important messages of wedding ceremonies, meetings and funerals to the dear ones.
But some quarters especially in remote areas are still using high grounds to supplement the many technologies that have been introduced although it occurs at minimal rates, as mortals both in rural and urban places posses and enjoy using cell phones in this day and age, some indigenous in remote areas are experiencing hurdles in using this device as they cover big distances when the need to get in touch with relatives and friends who are at far places arises as they go to a particular place to find mobile phone network service even though it tends not to be all that effective.
As is evident with a mere look at one of the stories carried in the ICT supplement to The Nation of 31st July 2007 of a picture of a Malawian woman villager wearing a cell phone around her neck is a true significant of ICTs boom in the country.
But great of these modern Information Communication Technology has much favoured the urban settings, putting the rural masses only to use limited communication technologies hence putting their appreciation and understanding of ICT quite trivial.
This oddity has unfamiliar side as many only hears stories of modern technologies like computers without seeing or even using them as these devices are sometimes none existence in their locality.
It is hard to convince a villager that messages of life and death can be conveyed outside their locale to reach the target both far and near in their urgency and entirety by the use of computer connected to internet by sending electronic mail, as people who went through the corridors of high learning institutions to bring such services to their kinfolks after completion of studies are always moving to towns and cities. And this does not require a connoisseur to conclude that villagers will carry on believing that phones are the only answer to fast communication in modern world if this trend continues.
Through the ambitious project of Malawi government of coming up with telecentres at rural level which will fridge telephone, internet, photocopying, television, lamination, photography and fax devices is a right formula in solving this problem.
ICT is a new and exciting area as it offers a lot of unlimited opportunities and it is a wise idea to invest time and energy for harnessing the opportunities, which have the profound positive impact on our lives.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The success tale of a Form 2 secondary school drop out.
THE TALE OF JENGA SUPPORT CENTER AT BOLERO, RUMPHI
If what you do helps someone else achieve something, then you really have accomplished much. And that not money is the real reward of success. Our wise ancestors coined the edge.
Another saying of wisdom by our wise intimates; the heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the right.
After all, you must also cultivate enthusiasm and zeal in your task; otherwise you will sink into mediocrity. And where zeal and skill meet a miracle usually follows.
This came to light three months I arrived at Jenga Support Center at Bolero in Rumphi district in the Northern Region of Malawi.
Situated about 40 kilometers outside Rumphi Trading Center going to the west while braving the dusty and rough road despite being the one that takes multitudes of tourists to Nyika National Park, the strings of villages mainly of mud bricks houses with iron sheets roofs attracts attention of hundreds on lookers who passes by at the end of the day.
While appreciating stunning maize and tobacco gardens dotted all over, is a two roomed wholly roofed with corrugated iron sheets of high quality. The plastered whole building is in white paint and the words; Jenga Support Center at the top written in blue.
If you are one of those who judge people by their appearance, not success of their brains and hands you could be mislead seeing soft spoken Godfery Jenga Gondwe cladding his shoes, trousers both in black color with a crime long sleeves shirt with a necktie that he is man behind the mentioned center.
“I started Jenga Support Center with only one sewing machine way back 1999 after running a small hardware shop for two years right here at Bolero trading center,” explains Gondwe.
Gondwe a very enterprising person he is a man who dreams in colour. This is the man who is the source of economic brainwave to the rural areas of Bolero and across entire Northern region.
Making a kick-start with a single sewing machine in the past recent years he is now a proud owner of a tailoring shop satiated with twenty-eight sewing machines, carpentry and joinery workshops and wedding and fabrication.
“It was my desire late in 90s to help Malawi government in developing the country by opening a vocational trainings skills to help the needy young people and vulnerable groups at the end providing self employments especially in this era where there is a loud cry of unemployment. But at that time I had no resources and no ideas of which buttons to press for assistance,” he says.
That is why the 36 years old father of three children had every reason to call for support from non-governmental organizations and indeed TEVETA itself.
He explained, that so far eighteen youths in Tailoring, and six in Carpentry and Joinery fields had graduated since the inception of the Center and were on scholarship programme offered by Gondwe himself while the rest who had just joined the Center by January 2007 were sponsored by World Vision, (a non-governmental organization).
“Godfrey Jenga Gondwe is the beneficiary of Skills Development Initiative (SDI) programme initiated by TEVETA in 2001, under this programme TEVETA provides training outreach programmes to the youths in order to promote the provision of trainings through enhanced traditional apprenticeship schemes.
The SDI programme which was piloted in Rumphi, Salima, and Mwanza districts from 2001 to 2002 under the Informational Sector Training Programme, youths were trained in different occupation such as Brick Lying, Carpentry And Joinery and Tailoring.
But that was not the formula for solving problems facing the younger generation, unless offering some training within their locality exactly as what TEVETA did to Gondwe who mastered the skills so well as he was the recognized by TEVETA as one of those who could train his fellow locals within the community.
And since 2001 he Center has trained about 372 youths mostly girls from all over the districts in the Northern region.
“I am one amongst the first group of the youths who had benefited from vocational training skills offered at Jenga Support Center and now I have opened a Tailoring Shop at Rumphi Trading Center where am eking money to make my ends meet,” says James Gondwe, who has no relation with Jenga.
However Gondwe laments, lack of materials to give to those who graduates from the Center for a start, Houses to accommodate trainees from far districts and meeting Transportation costs to various places to see how those who have received vocational skills are doing are the major challenges the Center faces.
Visiting the Jenga Support Center one would discover to his amusement that deep in the rural areas there are some Malawians who dream in color. And if people of Gondwe caliber are to be many, fairly recognized and supported the Warm Heart of Africa would completely develop within short years.
It is the wonders of success that could make any person to trek down from where ever he or she is to Bolero to see testimonies of Gondwe.
Jenga Support Center is never short of visitors, at the dawn of the day and as the sun descends down to have itself immersed deep into the far western horizon, parting the land it had shone upon a dozen hours ago into the inevitable darkness, many have different tales to tell about the Center which are true reflections that the success story of a Form 2 secondary school drop out has been herd all over the hills and mountains.
As success can be defined in a variety of ways but all boils down achieving something one set to do or becoming what you want to be. Then it is a fact who can dispute that Gondwe has successed.
If what you do helps someone else achieve something, then you really have accomplished much. And that not money is the real reward of success. Our wise ancestors coined the edge.
Another saying of wisdom by our wise intimates; the heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the right.
After all, you must also cultivate enthusiasm and zeal in your task; otherwise you will sink into mediocrity. And where zeal and skill meet a miracle usually follows.
This came to light three months I arrived at Jenga Support Center at Bolero in Rumphi district in the Northern Region of Malawi.
Situated about 40 kilometers outside Rumphi Trading Center going to the west while braving the dusty and rough road despite being the one that takes multitudes of tourists to Nyika National Park, the strings of villages mainly of mud bricks houses with iron sheets roofs attracts attention of hundreds on lookers who passes by at the end of the day.
While appreciating stunning maize and tobacco gardens dotted all over, is a two roomed wholly roofed with corrugated iron sheets of high quality. The plastered whole building is in white paint and the words; Jenga Support Center at the top written in blue.
If you are one of those who judge people by their appearance, not success of their brains and hands you could be mislead seeing soft spoken Godfery Jenga Gondwe cladding his shoes, trousers both in black color with a crime long sleeves shirt with a necktie that he is man behind the mentioned center.
“I started Jenga Support Center with only one sewing machine way back 1999 after running a small hardware shop for two years right here at Bolero trading center,” explains Gondwe.
Gondwe a very enterprising person he is a man who dreams in colour. This is the man who is the source of economic brainwave to the rural areas of Bolero and across entire Northern region.
Making a kick-start with a single sewing machine in the past recent years he is now a proud owner of a tailoring shop satiated with twenty-eight sewing machines, carpentry and joinery workshops and wedding and fabrication.
“It was my desire late in 90s to help Malawi government in developing the country by opening a vocational trainings skills to help the needy young people and vulnerable groups at the end providing self employments especially in this era where there is a loud cry of unemployment. But at that time I had no resources and no ideas of which buttons to press for assistance,” he says.
That is why the 36 years old father of three children had every reason to call for support from non-governmental organizations and indeed TEVETA itself.
He explained, that so far eighteen youths in Tailoring, and six in Carpentry and Joinery fields had graduated since the inception of the Center and were on scholarship programme offered by Gondwe himself while the rest who had just joined the Center by January 2007 were sponsored by World Vision, (a non-governmental organization).
“Godfrey Jenga Gondwe is the beneficiary of Skills Development Initiative (SDI) programme initiated by TEVETA in 2001, under this programme TEVETA provides training outreach programmes to the youths in order to promote the provision of trainings through enhanced traditional apprenticeship schemes.
The SDI programme which was piloted in Rumphi, Salima, and Mwanza districts from 2001 to 2002 under the Informational Sector Training Programme, youths were trained in different occupation such as Brick Lying, Carpentry And Joinery and Tailoring.
But that was not the formula for solving problems facing the younger generation, unless offering some training within their locality exactly as what TEVETA did to Gondwe who mastered the skills so well as he was the recognized by TEVETA as one of those who could train his fellow locals within the community.
And since 2001 he Center has trained about 372 youths mostly girls from all over the districts in the Northern region.
“I am one amongst the first group of the youths who had benefited from vocational training skills offered at Jenga Support Center and now I have opened a Tailoring Shop at Rumphi Trading Center where am eking money to make my ends meet,” says James Gondwe, who has no relation with Jenga.
However Gondwe laments, lack of materials to give to those who graduates from the Center for a start, Houses to accommodate trainees from far districts and meeting Transportation costs to various places to see how those who have received vocational skills are doing are the major challenges the Center faces.
Visiting the Jenga Support Center one would discover to his amusement that deep in the rural areas there are some Malawians who dream in color. And if people of Gondwe caliber are to be many, fairly recognized and supported the Warm Heart of Africa would completely develop within short years.
It is the wonders of success that could make any person to trek down from where ever he or she is to Bolero to see testimonies of Gondwe.
Jenga Support Center is never short of visitors, at the dawn of the day and as the sun descends down to have itself immersed deep into the far western horizon, parting the land it had shone upon a dozen hours ago into the inevitable darkness, many have different tales to tell about the Center which are true reflections that the success story of a Form 2 secondary school drop out has been herd all over the hills and mountains.
As success can be defined in a variety of ways but all boils down achieving something one set to do or becoming what you want to be. Then it is a fact who can dispute that Gondwe has successed.
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