Digital Swaraj Fellowship: Revisiting the Journey of DEF’s Flagship Programme
“This is the spot that gets a signal. Apart from this the entire village and in fact the entire island is unconnected” said Mukesh (name changed).
“This is the spot that gets a signal. Apart from this the entire village and in fact the
entire island is unconnected” said Mukesh (name changed).
Sawariyadigar is a village located on a river island in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra. The village has no access to the world outside; no road, rail, bridge, or even connectivity. There is a primary school run by an NGO that ensures all the kids get access to primary education. After primary school the children have two options; not pursue further studies or be separated from their parents. Most choose the latter. Aadiwasi Janjagruti (AJ), an initiative of Ulgulan Foundation has been working towards empowering community members of Sawariyadigar to gain access to their rights and entitlements.
They create hyper-local video content to raise awareness of social issues and circulate it through their YouTube channel or in-person screenings. Through their various interventions over the last few years they have created community leaders in several villages of Nandurbar.
“Saurabh bhai, Abner bhai, aap log yahan aaye, humein bohot khushi hui” said Dilip Radya Pawara, a volunteer of AJ and the Sarpanch (village headman) of Sawariyadigar. He showed us the phone stand that the community members had built to access the mobile network without having to look for it blindly. I had an Airtel sim so I borrowed someone else’s phone to check the BSNL signal from that spot. BSNL is the only service-provider that reaches here, however, even on that spot one only gets one or two bars of network. This network is just a mobile network, not the Internet.
I was in awe of the situation in the village. The tiring journey had me wondering
if it would be worth the effort but it definitely was. We started from Dhadgaon village in the morning and drove for two hours to reach a spot where a boat was waiting for us. The hour-long boat ride felt much longer as we got drenched in the rain. We crossed the pillars of a bridge on our ride to the other side. “The construction of this bridge started 12 years ago and stopped about 10 years ago,” said Nitesh, the founder of AJ. Once we reached the shore we were welcomed by three volunteers of AJ who took us on bikes to the village. In short, Sawariyadigar, though located in the heart of the country, is about 15 hours from the nearest airport and about 10 hours from the nearest railway station.
I hardly got a chance to check my phone since it was raining. Expecting some messages and emails I opened my phone to see none. That’s when Mukesh (name changed) showed me ‘the spot’.
Cut to three months later, Digital Empowerment Foundation in collaboration with Commons Collective, Aadiwasi Janjagruti and the Sawariyadigar Gram Panchayat has initiated the setting up of a Digital School in the village.
As we celebrate 21 years of DEF let’s pledge to create a more inclusive, sustainable and just Digital Future.
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