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.

Reaching the Needed People

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.

Factors that Help in Assimilating New Information

Information is not neutral, we assimilate information differently from person to person. Make the information you give to others:

• Simple and straightforward
• Repeat what you say several times in an interesting and cohesive way
• Ask questions to ensure that everyone understands what you are saying
• Have a hands-on-approach to teaching and imparting the information.
• Give enough opportunity for testing first hand the imparted information, be it on computers or any related equipment.

Adjust the Manual to Local Circumstances

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:

• Know who needs Skills for Life and what they want to achieve through ICT. Find out how best to impart the information to them by knowing their living conditions, educational level, and local customs. Most development workers are local people and often know this information first hand. This background knowledge will enable you to make your training, teaching and information dissemination more effective as you will be able to put them in the frame of mind of the individual or group you are addressing instead of putting it into a generalized, broad and impersonal manner.
• You are teaching, to a great extend, technical information and skills. Nonetheless be simple and use technical language only where it is imperative to do so. Try to make the information as close as possible to the particular individual or group you are teaching it to using the information you have gathered about them.
• Assure yourself, before you go to the next information, that your “students” have fully understood all the information and can use the skills you taught them. Engage your students in a dialogue to know how much they have learned, what is yet not clear to them, what needs to be repeated, what practice is needed to master the skills you are teaching them. Make sure the audience understands the information and knows how to put it into practice. Then use the response to adjust your training and teaching.

Communication Blockage

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.

• You have to check yourself frequently to make sure that your training/teaching is simplified as much as possible and that you use examples and hands-on ways to impart the skills and knowledge you are aiming for. To be effective your training has to reach your students minds and stay there.
  

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.

• Your students may receive your training but miss to understand it.
  

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.

• Your students may receive the training but misunderstand it and apply it incorrectly.
  

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.

• Your trainees may receive and understand the information but not apply the skills they have learned.
  

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.

• People trained may have understood and mastered the skills and information but are not using it because of diverse reasons, unavailability of IT equipment and services, too much poverty, health or for other reasons.
  

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.

Ways to Communicate and Train Through Audio Visuals and Other Media

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.

• Illustrations and cartoons are also an excellent way to communicate your information and show the skills that you are teaching. These illustrations attract the attention of children as well as grown ups.
• If you air messages over the radio try to get into the popular programmes and the programmes that air at a time when they are heard by the widest audience. It is beneficial to have a budget line in a project to pay a bit for airing time in popular programmes which often are not for free. Being a community development project you can try to get a better rate than commercial advertising and at the same time be assured that you are reaching an active audience
• Use respected, reliable media channels and people to communicate your project, information and skills.

Communicating face-to-face

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.

Methodology

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.

• Begin a discussion of one of the problems or issues that is important to the group or person. Start with what is already known and focus on major concerns. Avoid using too much technical or scientific language.
• Encourage people to ask questions and air concerns. Guide the discussion to explore the causes of the problem and possible solutions.
• Remember to listen, which is just as important to communication as speaking. Listening helps to clarify why people are – or are not – taking the recommended action. Seek solutions to problems or obstacles even if they mean taking intermediate steps to reach the final goal.
• Show respect for other’s opinions, knowledge and ability to change. People learn best in situations that build their confidence, and they take action when they feel understood and respected.
• Support the person or group in taking action to solve the problem.
• Provide assistance to monitor progress, assess the results of actions and consider any necessary changes or further action.

From Information to Performance

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.