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Fancy Community Help Group
Fancy is a small remote, rural community in the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This community comprises some 240 women, 270 men and 140 households. In this community which has one primary school, a health clinic with regular opening hours and several churches, the main means of subsistence are fishing and cash crop farming. While there is a post office, there are no government offices, commercial banks or other business enterprises to facilitate employment so there is a high level of unemployment, particularly among women who are either farmers or homemakers or both. Although the community is a remote one, community members are linked to the ‘outside world’ through telephone connection, and a transport bus which makes daily runs to Kingstown, the country’s capital. In terms of access, there is only one entrance and exit to the community which lies in a hilly terrain in an area which is prone to land and rock slides. The poor state of the access road removes Fancy even further from communities in the north-eastern district where the community is located. Telephone access is not universal in terms of fixed lines, a situation which is the reverse in the case of mobile phone availability. Most households have a radio and a television set. At the best of times, however, community members have great difficulty in receiving radio transmissions from broadcast centres in St. Vincent and this situation becomes more acute in times of natural disasters. Internet access is virtually non-existent.
Fancy is one of those communities where people are more socially disadvantaged than poor as defined in conventional economic terms. However, because of their socially disadvantaged position, they can be thrown into poverty at any time. That is to say, the people of Fancy all own the land on which they live and subsist, as common property. They own their houses which are of concrete structure and are furnished with all modern conveniences. But because there is no constant flow of money, they become vulnerable to economic difficulties and its remoteness also puts the community at a disadvantage in terms of the ability of its members to gather information on issues which affect their daily lives such as farming methods and techniques, information to assist their children with their academic work, health issues etc. This means that for adults, there is really no way of expanding their knowledge base except by leveraging information and communication technology to facilitate the process of learning to improve their quality of life. Community members also have little access to government training programmes. Unless these training programmes are held in the village, it is extremely difficult for adults to participate in any learning activity since training sessions are usually held after regular working hours.
Recognising their situation and the possibility for creating change, the women of Fancy got involved in a process of ‘community development’ in which they combined organisational capacity building with economic necessity and social ideas to achieve their goals of developing their technical skills, expanding their economic activity and broadening their views on social issues towards improving their livelihood and providing a socioeconomic cushion for themselves, their families and the community. Theirs was to develop a model of ‘development’ which was equitable, inclusive and self-reliant. Including research and documentation, income generating projects, social training and non-formal education, this model of development embraced both women and men based on the unifying principle of ‘equality in ownership and benefits’. Notably, this community project was conceived and run by the women who had constituted themselves in the Fancy Community Help Group (FCHG) with the expressed purpose of improving the quality of their lives and that of their fellow citizens in a socially cohesive community built on notions and practice of the African tradition of the extended family. In fact, the focus of the FCHG has been to address issues of social well-being and strengthening social cohesion, creating initiatives which would stimulate and improve their livelihood opportunities and paying attention to historical and cultural issues which would encourage a positive sense of self, family and community. Over the past decade, the FCHG has undertaken several initiatives to further social and economic development: income earning activities to supplement the financial resources of their families, creating an indigenous banking system to provide loans to families, particularly for health and education purposes, conducting research and documentation of the community’s history, and participation in training aimed at personal and organisational development. Given their circumstances, of social and economic disadvantage, the remoteness of their community and their thirst for information, the 22 women who comprise the FCHG were not only interested in creating an economic and financial base to strengthen their livelihoods. They were also intent on creating a knowledge-based community through the use of modern communication information technology (ICT) which they felt would allow them to access information relevant to their daily lives and to link them with the outside world. For them, ICT is not just a teaching tool, but a research instrument and a source of information. This is critical because Fancy community members appreciate the value of education, learning and social progress.
It was against his background that the women of the FCHG decided to get involved in an ICT project which had the strong backing of their husbands and partners who felt that such a project would also benefit them and their children. In developing this project, the women were guided by the Women and Development Unit (WAND) of The University of the West Indies (UWI) in collaboration with a sister department, The University of the West Indies Distance Education Centre (UWIDEC) both of which were located within The UWI’s former Outreach sector, now the UWI Open Campus. It is our view that distance learning offers an essential opportunity for the beginnings or continuation of education for women, particularly rural women precisely because the program can be adapted to the rhythm and the life style of each woman individually. With this in mind and couched in the non-formal mode of learning, the idea of an ICT project was introduced to the community in 2004. At this time, WAND discussed with the Fancy Community Help Group the possibility of establishing a small training centre and a community radio. The Group had identified a building as a possible location for both activities but were unsuccessful in securing its use as a community training centre. The quest for a second building also proved unsuccessful and so a decision was taken to house the project in the community’s only preschool building where it would provide services for the health clinic which is also on the school complex. In this community driven, multi-stakeholder project the goal is to establish community access centres to achieve “anywhere, anytime, anyplace” education. The original idea involved the placement of 10 computer terminals in a small building with the possibility of extending it to provide space for a community radio station, so as to create a multi-media centre. The project will include training to use the internet, word processing, spreadsheets, accounting packages, etc and eventually getting the community to establish a community portal with e-mail accounts, etc. An important consideration is the use of wifi for the whole community using a shared network. Another consideration is the use of renewable energy e.g. solar panels and a Bio Diesel plant as cost reduction measures and as a means of sensitizing the community to the use of alternative sources of energy.
Benefits to the community from the ICT project and community radio station include:
- Enhancement of knowledge of agricultural techniques, skills, technology and technological developments, farming practices, availability of resources, environmental and developmental issues etc.
- Generate employment opportunities for the community.
- Research, news, information, community programmes.
- Health information, e.g. healthy eating habits, for healthier living and assisting the creation of a database recording system for the community health centre.
- Opportunities for increased technological training.
- Knowledge of accounting procedures.
- Knowledge of issues relating to women and other women’s groups.
- Cheaper and faster communication with friends and families through email.
- Reduction in expenditure for community events e.g. printing of wedding invitations and programmes.
- Greater cohesiveness centred around the project which would be owned by FCHG and the community.