Internet experimented in villages near the river Niger

A teacher explaining a lesson through research on Internet

One of the mains objectives of Segou Villages Connection Project is to connect the villages of the Segou region with Bamako, the capital of Mali. The partnership with the Niger/ Loire project of UNESCO provided an opportunity to bring Internet in 8 villages near the river Niger: Sékoro, Segou, Markala, Kokiribozo, Macina, Ouromodi, Diafarabé and Mopti.

Internet training in rural school in Markala

The schools pupils of these areas have been lucky, to discover the first notions of the Internet in their classrooms. Beyond the discovery of the role that Internet can play in the school life of children, we also realized that, in these isolated parts of Mali that the Internet can be a mean of information and allow the populations to express themselves, to share their lifestyles and to exchange experiences with others on-line.

A warm welcome by the local authorities in Ouromody

As in other villages, during a warm welcome ceremony organized by the local authorities, the mayor, a teacher and the chief of the village of Ouromodi – a retired experienced teacher – did not hide their enjoyment and stressed the necessity to have at their disposal tools allowing them to be connected to the rest of the country and the world, like Internet.
“We do not know it, but we heard about the Internet and its roles in various domains. We find it a convenient tool to open up our villages along the river “, said the village chief
With the Mobile Internet solution, the training session in the different villages (see pictures here) went very well.
For more information, please read these posts published during this tour of villages:

Technology in the village: A radio station created in the village with mp3 and memory card

Here is an innovation technology which allows the villagers to get in distance on FM, the music that a neighbor is playing on memory card.

How is it made?

We insert in an MP3, a memory card containing pieces of music and we check the pieces of music on the card as we check FM radios frequencies.

Once the music got on the card by the radio well, the neighbors can listen the same pieces of music with in distance their radios even small.

Due to the lack of electricity in villages, the MP3 and the radio are connected to a battery.

I would like to develop that system in some Ségou village for some different purposes:

- Inform and make sensitive the rural people on the advantages of sending children to school, especially, girls

- Inform the rural populations about the contagious diseases and about their dangers on the society

- Record the African traditional songs which are of disappearing and make them listen to young generations

- Record tales, proverbs and stories of the village for the young generations

- Create songs tales competitions between small children of the villages, record and plays these songs tales in the village. The winners will get gifts for their works.

- The initiative is here, but needs some means to realize it:

-  Solar panel as source of electricity

-  A battery

- A big tape recorder

- A MP3

- And memory cards

 

 

 

The participants use sms, word and twitter

Together with all the learners, we find a simple and fast manner to send information from villages through sms. The learners also learnt how to write posts on word for those who have access to Internet connection in their services or cybercafés. To send informations en pictures through Internet, we create count mails for all the participants so that since Ségou and surrounding villages, some can use sms and some can use Internet.

As twitter is very important in share instant informations, in getting contact with people all over the world, we create twitter account for some participants. You can follow them here: @fasokan, @alassanD, @ycoulibaly, @hamidoud111, @dembloumar, @diarraseydou, @Dtraore, @kassoumD

As we work on Internet connection key USB, we have been obliged to divide participants in for group of work around for computers with for key USB connection. Each group is leaded by a participant who has got a better level than the others.

I would like you to follow us and participate to our events through these counts.

Internet and sms formation in Dioro village

Today, the 18th of June, the Ségou villages connection project members in a very old mammywagon went toward Dioro by a very bumpy road. We were 6 persons from Ségou, Cinzana  and Zambougou with our luggage because we will take much time there: about 8 days.

Dioro is a rural village far of 70 km from the town of Ségou. We arrived in Dioro at about 9. After getting contact with some villagers who conducted us to see the local authorities, we begin things in a cybercafé we found in that village and on Internet mobile we carried with us: a panel solar, a battery, two computers, four Internet connection keys USB and some digital camera devices.

After explaining the aims of segou villages connection through Ségouinfos, more people appreciated the initiative and took part to the formation. Some learners laready knew a little how to use computer but, didn’t know how to use internet for their needs.

Today’s formation has been to teach people how to write posts, how to take picture and videos and how to publish posts on blogs. You will find all these post written by leaners on Segouinfos tomorrow.

We also create a count mail for every learners and teach them how to do that.

Some other people joined us this afternoon to ask if they can participate to that formation they find very interesting. According to them, they like working on Internet but, they don’t know how and that will be an occasion for them to discover Internet a lot and share infos with other through sms.

We are very happy for having chosen that village because we have been very welcome by people.

The first Internet and SMS training in Cinzana-Gare

The lack of means of information and communication in the rural areas is one of the reasons that many events and good initiatives of development stay hidden. Villages abound in events, in traditions, in customs, in culture which deserve to be known by the others. To take up this challenge of information and communication in rural areas in Mali and for first time, in the Region of Segou is the main objective aimed by the Segou villages Connection Project.

Segou Villages Connection is a project of local site information to bind the Malian cities and the villages of Segou in the field of information and communication and in raising sensitization.

It is in this frame that took place in Cinzana-Gare on Sunday, May 1st, 2011, a session of information and relay training in certain villages of Segou. Certain relays were not able to be present this wedding day in Mali, especially the women, but the training will be continual and the group widens as we work continues.

The information concerned the necessity of the connection of cities and villages in the cases of information, communication and in raising awareness, the discovery of Internet in the village through the connection 3G, sites of information, social networks, immediate messaging systems.

The training concerned the modalities of sending news to the blog administrator and moderator by SMS and by mammy-wagons by the participants in the diferent villages and how to create a system of feedback between the readers and the villagers.

At the end of this training, a very courageous team has been made to send news by SMS before each of them have their own computer, solar panel, batteries and mobile Internet. This team won’t take will always connect you to rural news.