‘Young people as vaccine buddies, fake news police can help India fight Covid-19’

They call themselves The Kisan Union and they work solely for farmers and villagers via their kiosk. Read More

On 17 December 2020, a group of mostly Indian American protestors gathered outside Facebook’s headquarters in the United States. Read More

On 17 December 2020, a group of mostly Indian American protestors gathered outside Facebook’s headquarters in the United States. Read More

HealthPreneur Serving Communities in Rural Telangana
DEF’s centre in Chinna Kondur, Telangana is located at the main chowk of the village making it accessible to all. Jagdish and Vamsi, the project officers for DEF in the region took me around the village. An old woman saw us walking on the street and she shouted “Vamsi!!”, we turned and walked to her house. She said to him “when is the doctor coming? I am supposed to have a consultation this week.” DEF has ten centres in the region and one of the centre’s is run by a medical professional or ‘HealthPreneur’ as we call them at DEF. He visits all the ten villages of DEF and provides medical consultation to the patients in the village at a minimal price. Read More

Creating a Cadre of Community Leaders in Barabanki
Over the last seven years DEF has created a network of SoochnaPreneurs who serve their villages by providing digital services like access to government entitlements, digital financial services, tele-health services and computer classes. During the pandemic they became more active and spread information related to COVID-19, social distancing, the importance of masks and vaccination. In fact, many of them played a huge role in the vaccination drives that were held in rural parts of Barabanki. These entrepreneurs have become the only point of access to government schemes, financial services and even education for many people in their respective villages. Read More

Creating an Alternative Livelihood Opportunity for Women in Telangana
I saw a group of girls practicing embroidery at DEF’s digital centre in Chinna Kondur, Telangana. Deepika, the embroidery trainer who was herself a student earlier has been training girls for the last 2 years. The embroidery training enables these girls to earn a livelihood for themselves. This allows them freedom and helps them make their own decisions and their families are not apprehensive about sending them for the training because Deepika is well known in the community now so they trust her and the work she is doing. Read More

DigiGyan- A new digital beginning
Schools in India have finally re-opened after a long break because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To fight the pandemic and the deep digital divide that has come about and become obvious because of it, DEF set up a digital literacy classroom, Digigyan in a government senior secondary school in Karnawas, Haryana. DEF’s team from Delhi made a monitoring visit to the rural village of Karnawas to observe the newly inaugurated digitally equipped school. The Digigyan program was the first digital intervention at this government school; many of the children didn’t have access to digital devices before this even though the whole world had shifted online. Read More

Providing Online Education Amidst a Deep Digital Divide
Located about 50 kilometers from Lucknow, Saidanpur is nowhere close to the capital in terms of development and education. The entrance into the village is with the ruins of various havelis that are about 150 to 200 years old. DEF’s digital center is located in one such dilapidated but refurbished ruins of a haveli. Noori is one of the girls working at the digital center as an IT trainer. When asked about the importance and impact of this digital center she said “during COVID schools have shut down and unfortunately government schools have not shifted online. Moreover many students of private schools that have can’t afford to buy digital devices. At a time like this our work here has not stopped so every day students come here and I take two batches of computer classes apart from that. Read More

Smartpad: Fighting Stigma & Creating Livelihood
“My brother thought I was making a children’s diaper” said Shreemati Devi, a digital entrepreneur involved in the production of Smartpads. Smartpad is a re-usable sanitary pad. As Shreemati explained the benefits of using it a group of young boys stood around us listening to her. However, as they realized what she was talking about they mumbled to each other and walked away. As I noticed this I asked Shreemati why this happened and she said “they feel shy listening to us speak about periods. This is exactly the reason so many young girls suffer quietly and don’t speak out when they get their first period. Her body goes through serious changes and she is unable to speak to anyone about it, just imagine what she must be going through.” Read More

Woman Entrepreneur Using WhatsApp & YouTube to Expand Her Business
Seema Devi a woman entrepreneur from Khunti, Jharkhand who is engaged in lacquer bangle busi-ness, designs attractive and colourful bangles and sells them in the nearby market and contributes to her family income. She lives with her husband and two children. The main source of income for the family is by farming. The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically reduced the income, leaving the family in a financially vulnerable position. DEF’s entrepreneur Aarti Sanga from Khunti, Jharkhand identified Seema during a survey of women entrepreneurs. Read More

Providing a Solution to Non-Availability of ATM
Bhagyalata runs a SoochnaPreneuer centre (digital service centre) in Chinna Kondur. With one laptop, one printer and one biometric machine she serves the community by providing digital skills that would have been inaccessible to them. Most of the people in the village and some people from neighbouring villages as well visit the centre to apply for government schemes and entitlements. Bhagyalata said “on an average I get 40 to 50 people every single day. If the government launches a new scheme then there is a long line at the centre for the next few days. Hundreds of people come to apply and they come here because this is the only centre in a radius of five kilometres. Read More

Providing Financial and Governance Services in Remote Areas of Tijara
Jakhopur or as DEF likes to say ‘Jakhopur Smart Village’ is a typical rural village in Rajasthan with narrow lanes that turn into narrower lanes that lead to people’s houses. I entered one such lane and was greeted by a cow and three goats. A couple was sitting with their two children and I approached them. The woman was lighting a fire to cook lunch while the man was tending to the animals. The kids didn’t hide their curiosity, they started following me, trying to understand what a stranger was doing in their house compound. Read More

 

 

Digital Artisans of Pattamadai

GOAL Mentee Sushma Kumari

Unlocking Rural India's Potential for Economic Recovery

It’s interesting that we must share and narrate this story with so many friends throughout time. It is hard to begin with describing who I am, especially when there has been an evolution of thinking and applying and a growth of consciousness over time. One is never the same person they were yesterday, and they will never be the same person tomorrow, in a mixed manner. It could be good or bad. But interestingly, people are very kind when you are evolving under twenty or under thirty years of age, people are still kind, they don’t blame you and tend to take it easy and refrain from judging. If the same thing happens beyond thirty or so, then there are questions and expectations. Read More

Making Villages Smart

Jakhopur is a small village near Tijara. As one enters the village one can often be welcomed by camels with a cart tied to them navigating through the narrow lanes of the village. The narrow lanes meet at an intersection where a group of men can be seen sitting and chatting. The dark blue building where they are sitting has a logo that says ‘Smartpur’. Shahrukh Khan came and gave me a warm welcome as I walked towards the blue building. He is the Centre Coordinator for DEF in Tijara block. Shahrukh showed me the digital centre that had been set up in Jakhopur. It was equipped with laptops, printers and tablets and there were posters about COVID norms and guidelines all around. I asked him why people were sitting in the front porch of the digital centre and he said “this centre has become like the centre of this village. Since we conduct so many activities and workshops this has become like a meeting point for people. Read More