Skills for Life aims to provide NGOs and their communities with the needed knowledge to use information and communication technologies (ICT) to accelerate developmental efforts and to improve individual lives. This manual is a guide to understand and to put into practice some of ICTs tools for community development in Egypt. The manual is presented in non-technical language to be understood by everyone regardless of their knowledge of computers and related ICTs.
The manual offers ways to teach low income, underserved communities how to use ICT to improve their lives, be it through added skills for income generation and/or through an increased access to information. Everyone can use the manual to help acquire technological skills that can improve the life of their communities and themselves. The main user of this manual is intended to be the development practitioner at the grassroots level.
To disseminate ICT and to educate people in how to use it to better their lives be it through information, knowledge, income - or a combination of all three – needs more than providing people with the skills to operate this technology. It requires good observation and listening abilities to find out what people need and what they are interested in learning, and to make them aware of what ICT can do to improve their lives. Any communication of this sort has to be simple and engaging. The two parties have to have an open dialogue and be able to share opinions, aspirations and knowledge.
Children, youth and adults - female and male – in the low-income brackets and those who work with them to promote their well being, are the primary target group for the Skills for Life manual. ICT is not an end in itself. Therefore it is most successful when it is taught in conjunction to other developmental goals. The most appropriate persons to impart the knowledge of how to use this new technology and for what ends are the individuals who work closely with the community. These community workers are often from all walks of life, they are involved with teachers, health workers, business associations, community and women’s groups, public authorities and religious heads. Most of these development workers are staff members of NGOs or CBOs or are closely connected with them.
Information is not neutral, we assimilate information differently from person to person. Make the information you give to others:
There is no unified language or way to transfer information, knowledge and skills. The teaching and information sharing of Skills for Life needs to be adapted to the particular individual, group and community it is communicated to. This manual keeps the messages intentionally general. Local culture, circumstances and needs are the guidelines to using this manual.
Different circumstances and needs require different ways to effectively communicate information and knowledge, but there are basic principles that one can rely on when communicating:
Even with your best efforts and intentions, sometimes your training and teaching will not have the desired results. Understanding - from the very start - what the needs, aspirations, potential and weaknesses your target group has can often avoid problems later on.
Tip: If possible, use a mixture of training and teaching techniques, examples of which are audio-visual material, group work, competitions, research, role-playing, etc. to communicate knowledge and skills.
Tip: Use simple language and reduce technicalities to a minimum. Ask your students frequent questions to make sure that they are all following you. Have patience with the ones who need the information to be repeated for them. You might get surprised and find them the most dedicated students in the longer term.
Tip: Repeat the information frequently, show skills in action, give lots of examples and let your students explain to their colleagues how and what they have learned. Provide plenty of hands-on-training training and follow up. Monitor your trainees and ask them if they want you to make something clearer to them. Make sure, through questions that your students understand what you are teaching them.
Tip: Find out why this is the case. Find out the reason so that you will be able to increasing training quota as much as possible.
Tip: After knowing the cause of the problem try to find local solutions or substitutes to alleviate the obstacle(s) as much as possible. For example, if there is not enough public IT equipment to train on, try to know the closest computer lab open to the public. Encourage the development of a small enterprise for opening a computer lab or Internet café. Poverty and health issues will be harder to solve. In many cases liaising with other people working for poverty alleviation or health issuesin the area is the best first step to help out.
Audio visuals in the form of posters, overhead projections, computer based visuals, or related ways to graphically express an information are excellent training and teaching tools. The human memory is strengthened by the visual representation of information and by repetition. If you want to spread knowledge over a wider area local radio stations have proven to be immensely effective. You can publicize your activities and gain more trainees for example through airing the importance of ICT in a person’s life through a popular radio programme. A children’s play or a puppet show is also a successful way to pass on knowledge and to raise interest in the young to learn about the new technology. You might want to try a local newspaper too. Your creativity and imagination is the limit to spreading information, the Internet is a cheap and accessible way to publicize to a local, national, regional and international audience.
The best training/teaching is done person-to-person. Most of us learn best when someone shows us how to use new equipment and how to implement a new skill. Talking directly with a person gives us the opportunity to ask and to engage in a dialogue.
The most effective way to disseminate information is to use both the person-to-person approach and the group dissemination approach. Each of these approaches reinforces the other.
Effective learning requires a cycle of information, action and thought. People learn best when they participate actively in identifying a problem, in developing and carrying out a solution, and in reviewing the results. The process of communicating Skills for Life messages should therefore allow the participants to play an active role.
The goal of Skills for Life is to improve the life quality of poor people in Egypt. One of the first things to teach is self-reliance, the knowledge that every person is responsible to strive to attain the best possible life under her/his conditions and that this is partly possible by gaining more information and skills. Often a person, women in particular, hold deeply held images of themselves that they are not capable of improving their life by their own will, energy and talents. Sometimes you will find yourself that you are teaching people courage and self-confidence before you can teach them new information and ICT skills.