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Empowering Rural Youth and Women through Digital Literacy in Uttarakhand

The project seeks to empower rural youth (mainly girls) and women and sensitize them by increasing their access and control over digital resources and will serve as a permanent catalyst for them to be aware and included in the digital economy. Engaging them as volunteers, the project, train other girls and women in accessing several internet-based information/schemes provided by the government that will help them in making use of such schemes and information for themselves as well as their families. The present project focuses on empowering rural youth (mainly girls) and women through digital literacy and helps address some of the pressing challenges faced by them on livelihood, education, health, equality and access with the objective like; to bridge the technology gender divide and transform resource-based economy to knowledge-based economy; Using digital and help community development in fragile mountain ecosystems at par with people in plains; To align with the Digital India Vision of the Country.

Organisational Background

XX is a national development and humanitarian organisation engaged in delivering service to humanity since 1947 and contributing to nation building. The organisation empowers and creates awareness among the masses on development opportunities and build capacities of various stakeholders for harnessing development opportunities and making difference in the lives of poor and marginalized community. The organisation has focused its interventions on equitable and sustainable development, linking people with progressive policies and programmes of the government for transparent and accountable governance.

It has worked more than 7 decades for eradication of poverty and injustice, and experienced that poverty is not just economic and is rather characterized by inadequate or insecure sources of livelihood in relation to food, literacy, poor health, infrastructure, social discrimination and exclusion from access and control over economic resources.

The organisation is operational in 26 States in India, among the poor and most marginalized with the issues of concern i.e. Sustainable Livelihoods & Food Security, Democratic Governance and Disaster Risk Reduction & Climate Change, Peace and Reconciliation with people empowerment-oriented interventions throughout the country. The organisation works directly with the communities and through the partner organizations and their networks.

Proposed Project Detail

Introduction

Internet is an important part within the wheel of a digital economy. It is moving slowly but steadily to finding stronger path everywhere. We use Internet in our daily life. In 2011, internet users in rural areas in India were 112.8 million. Mobile internet user touched to 420 million by June 2017 with the rural India growing at a much higher rate than urban India as per the report published by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMA). Rural India is growing at a much higher rate around 26 percent in terms of mobile internet users. Demography play a big role in the adoption of mobile internet in India. The ongoing price war of mobile data has made the high-speed mobile internet more affordable than ever before. It has created a worldwide highway of information and almost touched all the fields of human life. Business man can sale their products online, student can access academic information, one can apply online for jobs, one can send and receive money, one can purchase items for daily use, one can read online, one can send and receives images, etc.

Uttarakhand, often referred to as the Devbhumi (literally “Land of the Gods”) due to many Hindu temples and pilgrimage centres, is also known for the natural environment of the Himalayas, the Bhabharand the Terai. Uttarakhand has a total area of 53,483 sq. km of which 86% is mountainous and 65% is covered by forest. Most of the northern part of the state is covered by high Himalayan peaks and glaciers. According to the 2011 Census of India, Uttarakhand has a population of about 1 Crores, with 69.77% of the population living in rural areas.

The Uttarakhand state is the second fastest growing state in India. Like most of India, agriculture is one of the most significant sectors of the economy of Uttarakhand. Other key industries include tourism and hydropower, and there is prospective development in IT, ITES, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and automobile industries.

About 15 years ago, given the topography of region, data connectivity in Uttarakhand was a challenge. Few mobile service providers undertook a number of steps to provide mobile connectivity and data services to people here. In June 2013, when there was multi-day cloudburst in Uttarakhand, Vodafone India had deployed a portable base tower station at a relief camp set-up by the local administration in Rudraprayag.

Main source of livelihood in Uttarakhand is agriculture. Being a mountainous state with fragile environment, impacts of climate change here is huge. Both life and livelihood are affected. Most affected are women and youth. Rural women are pivot of agriculture, performing many household and agriculture job, they also play a major role in the co-management of their natural, social, economic, resources of agricultural development including crop-production, livestock production, horticulture and post- harvest operations but they remain backward due to illiteracy, superstitions, dominant male roles in decision-making, social evils and many other cultural factors. Rural women face problem of poverty, ownership of resources, problem of health, problem of education and access to opportunities. And due to limited livelihood options, young people here, are migrating to plains or even other states.

The present project focuses on empowering rural youth (mainly girls) and women through digital literacy and help address some of the pressing challenges faced by them on livelihood, education, health, equality and access.

About the Project

Through the “Empowering Rural Youth and Women through Digital Literacy” Project, the focus would be on bringing youth (mainly girls) and women from the mountain state of Uttarakhand online. Women form only 12 percent of internet user base in rural India. And youth (including girls) in mountains are migrating to plains in absence of enough livelihood opportunities. As part of the project, young and enthusiastic youth (mainly girls) and influencing women would be identified as volunteers. We propose to capacity build these volunteers and provide them with internet enabled mobile devices and engage them in training other youth and women on how to use smart phones, access the Internet through mobile phones and search for information online that will help them enhance livelihood, access to information related to health and education, which will further help them in leading a dignified life.

We propose to conduct the project in Rudraprayag in Uttarakhand. Reason being, it’s a mountainous district, Vodafone has powerful towers, better reach and is the most reliable network here. The district is located at the confluence of river Alaknanda and Mandakini, two tributaries of river Ganges, with various pilgrimages sites, inviting large number of devotees every year. Most of the population is dependent on agro-based activities for their livelihood, but most of them are threatened by unemployment and food insecurity. Thus, the primary focus would be to provide them access information related to livelihood and food security and in addition access information related to health and education. Economic independence of women will also help in their financial inclusiveness. Another immediate impact would be life and livelihood of youth and women would improve and migration of youth would be reduced.

Aim

The project aims to empower rural youth (mainly girls) and women by facilitating digital literacy and capacity build them to access information online to enhance livelihood and improve their life through education, health and food security.

Objectives

  • To empower rural youth (mainly girls) and women through educating and enabling them to use online services and search engines to access information related to livelihood, education, health and finance; government schemes and entitlements and benefit from them
  • To bridge the technology gender divide and transform resource-based economy to knowledge-based economy.
  • Using digital and help community development in fragile mountain ecosystems at par with people in plains
  • To align with the Digital India Vision of the Country.

Activity Matrix

Sustainability

The project seeks to empower rural youth (mainly girls) and women and sensitize them by increasing their access and control over digital resources and will serve as a permanent catalyst for them to be aware and included in the digital economy. Engaging them as volunteers, the project, train other girls and women in accessing several internet-based information/schemes provided by the government that will help them in making use of such schemes and information for themselves as well as their families. In addition, awareness will also be created on various important issues like education and health, which the government has been grappling with over the years. Gender disparity will be challenged through this project and will open newer avenues for women for more sustainable changes. Many women will become role model for others.

The project is initially proposed as a one-year pilot project. The project will be extended to more villages in year two and three; wherein the volunteers in year-1 will graduate to Volunteer Leaders or Supervisor roles in year 2 and 3. In three years, we plan is to cover all the villages in the proposed district. We could also extend the project to other districts wherever we have strong data network, a key requirement for the project. Since Rudraprayag is a disaster-prone location, volunteers and other trained youth and women will be key resource during any humanitarian crisis. We also plan to build in more partnerships in the project including with few shopping Apps and other service providing Apps.