Empowering girl students from poor families via online scholarship
Bangladesh
“CAMPAIGN WORKSHOP PROGRESS REPORT”
March 24th 2014, EMK Center, Dhanmondi, Dhaka-Bangladesh
“E-NGO International Programme is a joint effort
of Digital Empowerment Foundation and
Public Interest Registry to ICT enable grassroots
organizations with .NGO Domain Advocacy.”
www.pirengo.org
About eNGO Programme (International) – Bangladesh:
There are currently over 60,000 NGOs working as a development organization in Bangladesh out of which 2298 are registered with NGO Affairs Bureau, Bangladesh. A satisfactory number of NGOs have basic knowledge about ICT application but they do not have a proper webpage for knowledge sharing. Most of the NGOs working at the grassroots level therefore remain unknown and do not receive the appreciation and benefit coming from sources that can provide support to these local NGOs. This situation is so due to various factors like: -lack of resources and lack of knowledge on ICT expertise and foresight. These NGOs have a lot od of information which does not reach outside their locality, government, policy makers and potential donors.
From Digital Empowerment Foundation, India Mr. Ravindra Laxman Ghate, Regional Coordinator, discussed the need and possibilities of eNGO Workshop for Bangladeshi grassroots NGOs in ICT capacity building with free Website development.
Md. Nurun Nabi Talukder, Director General, NGO Affairs Bureau, Bangladesh, was present in the eNGO workshop as the Chief Guest and Dr. Ananya Raihan, Executive Director; D.Net, Bangladesh was also present at the workshop. Dnet had taken the initiative of organizing the local NGOs of Bangladesh for eNGO International Workshop. The workshop was held on 24th march, 2014 at Dhaka, Bangladesh. Dnet with the support of Public Interest Registry (.ORG), USA and Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), India organized this workshop.
Programme Components:
The eNGO initiative comprises of the following components for roll out and execution:
- The focus of the eNGO workshop was to disseminate knowledge to the grassroots organizations in the area of Web and Internet technology and how it can be leveraged for organizational advantages;
- Dedicated session on How .NGO Domain will be an asset for NGOs;
- EOI from them for .ORG Domains with Websites;
- Getting .NGO Domain Choices for their NGO and programmes;
- Issues and Challenges with feedbacks and recommendations.
E-NGO Campaign & Workshops Evaluation/ Assessment
PRE-WORKSHOP ASSESSMENT
Summary of pre-workshop responses regarding Internet tools knowledge, website, domain & Social Media usage skills among NGOs: (Total no of NGOs attended: 47)
NGOs Demography:
8 Out of 57 NGOs, most of the NGOs work in multi-disciplinary activities.
8 These NGOs are involved in various scopes of programs including education, livelihood, health, social awareness, environmental issues, water & sanitation, disaster management etc.
Rating Skills of NGOs in ICT & Web:
8 All of the participants said they had a basic understanding of usage of Internet for organization development & community empowerment program. 78.72% of the participants said they had a good understanding but they do not use it for official purposes. Only 21.28% said that they use all possible means of internet & web tools but with heavy costs involved;
8 75% of participants had no understanding of the purpose of conducting an eNGO workshop programme and its relevance in NGO empowerment. 20% of the participants felt they had a good understanding about the workshop and 5% felt that they had a strong understanding about the programme and its benefits;
8 21.28% organizations had a website with independent .org domain. Rest 78.72% had no awareness of website, domain & social media. Out of these organizations, 70% felt that it is very expensive to maintain a website.
8 10% of the organizations had no understanding of top-level domains like .com, .org, .net, .in etc. while 80% had a good understanding of domains.
8 75% organizations had never used social media like facebook, twitter, YouTube, etc., 60% had heard about social media but were not using it for official purpose; only 15% were using it for organization networking purpose.
8 15% participants did not use email as a mode of communication, 10% did not have organisation’s email ids. Although almost everyone had a minimum idea of using emails for business purpose, only 10% organizations were using an official email ID. 90% participants had independent email identities.
8 Most of them were enthusiastic about using Internet and web tools but had cost and technical support issues from local vendors. 100% NGOs showed a great interest on .NGO especially those who had no option for .ORG domain. They liked the directory feature the most.
8 There are 17 NGOs who have already submitted their profile to go online with .org and later with .NGO domain. Others are drafting content with help from their local organization Dnet. Very soon eNGO will have a large number of NGO profiles to help them go online.
Summary of pre-workshop responses regarding content, knowledge & digital documentation for NGOs:
8 Most of the NGOs are good in documenting their activities and office work in the form of annual reports and activities but do not do it digitally. Only 20% participant NGOs had information in a proper digital format. Out of the 20 percent only 15 percent had made their documents online.
8 90% NGOs had digital photos of their activities. But, Annual Reports in the form of booklet is an expensive exercise.
8 85% NGOs had no presence on Google drive or any other online file management tools. Only the rest 15% were using Google drives to manage their work online.
8 5% NGOs had uploaded photos on Picasa, 30%on Facebook, 0% on flicker and only 2% were using YouTube for video broadcasting. Most NGOs had no exposure on using all these tools without investing additional resources.
8 Only 15% were using News Letter feature for their visitors, 0% were using SMS as a Community Newsletter for disseminating information with communities in local languages & English both.
8 . eNGO is now Local eNGO Partner is helping all the NGOs to draft content and design according to web interface. They wanted to use social media for their campaign and networking but had no knowledge of content designing. eNGO along with local partner is helping them.
POST- WORKSHOP ASSESSMENT
A general feedback session was conducted. This session was to collect some information from the participants regarding the value of .NGO domain among development communities in Bangladesh along with PIR eNGO programme, its conducted in workshop for the benefits of the grassroots organizations. The response was surprising and the participants had many queries related to the .NGO domain and its launch, cost per domain etc. Many people asked about content structure, website management and online donation process etc.
The post workshops assessment was done through a question-answer session. Most of the participants raised their concerns about security and sustainability of the website under .ngo domain. They asked about cost of development and management of their website and also about the storage capacity of the website. All participants were awarded with certificates.
Summary of responses regarding level of knowledge and skills after workshops:
“The following statistics represent those participants who responded to the questionnaire”
- Maximum number of participants were able to differentiate amongst .ORG & .NGO Domains.
- All participants are eagerly waiting to get .NGO Domain for their NGOs websites.
- Most of the participants were able to draft content for website and social media as per content structure provided by eNGO Network.
- 11% of participants were confident about updating their web pages independently any time with the help of User Manual provided by eNGO.
- 80% of the participants understood about how social media can help in getting support for many activities and causes.
- 100% NGOs preferred the online donation service and also said that the website should not be too costly for them to manage.
- 80% participants felt uncomfortable in updating their website so they chose eNGO facilitation center to do it on regular basis.
- Most of them chose English as a preferred language for their website but they also showed interest in getting a Bengali version of their website in the longer run.
Outcome of Workshop
8 57 Validated NGOs gathered at one place.
8 20 NGOs are going online by 2nd week of April
8 Many are sending content by 25th April
8 80 .NGO Domain EOI
Strategy plan for eNGO – Dot NGO Initiative in Bangladesh
Outreach:
We are in the initial stage of promoting outreach and communications as we can reach the maximum number of NGOs to provide access in the NGO community.
– End of the Document –
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