Digital Swaraj Fellowship: Revisiting the Journey of DEF’s Flagship Programme
Ruben, a SoochnaPreneur centre from the coastal village of Vodarevu is transforming his community by providing them access to the internet, information, digital services and government entitlements.
Ruben is serving as the Center Coordinator at the Wireless for Community (W4C) Center in Vodarevu in Chirala, a coastal town in Andhra Pradesh state of India. The centre is popularly known as Vodarevu ISOC centre.
Ruben was honoured with the CSC Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the community. CSC Award is instituted by the Government of India’s flagship company called CSC e-Gov Services Pvt. Ltd. Ruben possesses two banking correspondent IDs, enabling him to conduct banking transactions totaling Rs. 90,00,000 annually and generate optimal revenue through per transaction commission. Ruben manages to earn an annual income ranging from Rs. 400,000 to 450,000 from the centre. Ruben hails from the Chirala fisherman community and affirms that the Vodarevu ISOC centre in their locality has opened up numerous avenues for community members. At his centre, many students including out of school children gain knowledge about the internet and computers. Ruben has also enabled “telemedicine consultations” through his CSC licensing. For the “telemedicine services” for the local communities Ruben has sought membership of E-Sanjeevani application of CSC, and facilitated direct face-to-face interactions on screen with the doctors and facilitated genuine doctor’s prescription for the fishermen community, for which they earlier had to go to far away places.
Ruben is popular among the community for his mobilisation abilities and because of his social welfare attitude, there is a tremendous awareness about all possible government entitlements. Local fishermen community members and adjoining villagers flock the centre to get their entitlements.
Ruben has intelligently earned Banking Correspondent (BC) licences from multiple banks including HDFC Bank, and that enables him to provide banking services at the doorstep. None of the fishermen community members need to now go to the bank to deal with their staff because of being illiterate. Ruben is the community’s face of trust and doorway to adequate knowledge that is required to avail banking and financial services.
Ruben acknowledges that his ability to assist his people is a result of the platform and adequate digital infrastructure with capacity building workshops by ISOC and the Digital Empowerment Foundation. The consistent support from these organisations enables Ruben to stay updated and equipped to navigate the rapidly evolving world.
Vodarevu ISOC centre offers a range of services like photocopying, printing, scanning, colour-photo printing, internet services, WiFi hotspots, checking exams, results, ticketing, email services, online bill payments or recharge of prepaid mobile services, submission of online applications and other related services. The centre also facilitates information related to government schemes that are made available to the community, including helping the community to fill the forms and avail them.
The fishermen community share their sense of gratitude for having such digital facility amidst their cluster, because of the following reasons:
- earlier they had to go far away places to avail digital services
- earlier their cost of digital dependent services were significantly high since
- earlier, there was no time for the fishermen to go out frequently to avail services because of the fishing cycle and their time would not match except on holidays when the digital centres would be closed
- earlier, they had to run from pillar to post because they were unaware about how to avail services and now they have their own community member to create a sense of awareness and empathy to the needs of the service seekers
- now the digital centre is always open, available and highly trusted
- service is cheaper
A resident of Vodarevu village from a fisherman community, Peter is an 18-year old who has shown great enthusiasm in learning about computers and the internet through the Wireless for Community (W4C) Center in Vodarevu. He says, “I have learnt Office Suites and can do data entry with reasonable speed. I didn’t know much about technology and the internet before, but now I am learning and my confidence level is very high.”
“Before the Vodarevu ISOC Center in our village, we hardly had any chance to access the Internet with a guidance and facilitator, but ever since this centre was established, we get all our curiosity and answers from the connectivity available at the centre. I learnt how to use email as a primary communication system, and it is very useful that digital infrastructure has been offered. This allows access to education with digital as a medium, including experts, teachers and counsellors online,” Peter further elaborated.
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