Project information
| Status | Finalist |
| URL | Go to website |
| Category | Education Lifelong and informal learning |
| Country | Jamaica |
| Operational areas | Rural |
| Target groups | Children, Youth, Women, Men, Seniors |
| Fixed connection | DSL |
| Access points | Telecenter |
| Interact | Landline Phone, Desktop Computer, Cellphone, Laptop, PDA |
| Software License Types | Open Source, Proprietary |
Project location
Random images Challenge 2008
Container Project 'repatriating technology'
- Brief description
- The Container Project is a Not For Profit Community Multimedia Centre providing basic computer training including digital music and video production computer repair and maintenance literacy and numeric competence and accreditation for those who wish to use the centre as a platform for further education and the development of their creative talents.
- Vision, Objectives and Goals
- The objective of the project is to give those young people new hope and new options through self-discovery and the acquisition of marketable skills.The vision is to develop the Project into a sustainable social enterprise creating a grassroots-led initiative in a creative technology-driven context. In the process we are fostering the growth of a creative productive sector giving access and voice to a section of the community that would normally have been bypassed by the emerging technology.The organising committee is working to develop a space where Digital Arts Practitioners and ICT communicators can share their work giving the communities an opportunity to participate fully in multiple aspects of the technology.Some specific goals and objectives of the Container Project are to: 1. Provide access and training opportunities in ICT and Multimedia especially but not exclusively to out-of-school youth and traditionally underprivileged communities.2. Increase the number of trained persons available to facilitate the expansion of the Information Communication Technology sub-sector. 3. Enable participants to develop marketable skills for employment.The Container facilitates the following:? Dialogue between digital technologies and popular culture.? Linking of the informal culture of learning with formal education and training via the delivery of computer competencies for the ICT/Multimedia industry.
- How does ICT contribute to the organisational objectives
- Access to ICT's have helped to build confidence, communication and connectivity among the user group. Introduce users to new forms of creativity that they would normally not have access to. Participants have benefited from Digital storytelling workshops, Digital music and video production. They have gained accredited ICT certification from training programs provided through the project. We are currently developing an Internet Radio Portal for the Caribbean region through UNESCO's collaboration. We have also being extended the program to other communities because of these facilities.
- Transferability
- The most important and difficult aspect of replicating this project is ‘‘grounding’’ the project and creating the right ‘‘avatar’’ model. We had begun discussions about replicating the model in Freetown Sierra Leone under the aegis of the UN-sponsored free radio station. We were not able to proceed because of absence of resources but we feel it could have worked in those circumstances where young men specifically were hungry for skills and particularly computer skills (rightly or wrongly perceived as liberating and empowering skills). However the UN aegis would have provided in a very volatile situation the safety and security necessary for the success of a project like this. The ‘‘avatar”” needed for transferring the term from high tech. to game tech. must be a role model with whom the presumed participants can identify and respect and who is willing to be available 24 x 7 at least for the initial period. A case study documenting the end-to-end processes involved will ensure that lessons learnt can be shared locally and internationally.
- Project summary
- Palmers Cross is located in central Jamaica/south east Clarendon an area of high unemployment and under-educated people. Though rural the community is not a farming one and consists of mostly domestic inhabitants seeking low-level employment and is statistically a high crime area. Although training for employment socialisation and self-actualisation have become important deliverables the Container is faithful to its original mission which is to be a user-friendly community access point for trans-border communication and information between the people of Palmers Cross of all ages and relatives friends and opportunities in far-flung and distant locations cross the globe. The container Project teaches people of all ages to use the computer to industry standards and also as a creative tool and for personal communication needs. We offer traditional ICT Course in Office applications Multimedia Production and also hosts the only Internet Café in the region. To this end we have developed an e-POB (electronic post office box) portal to allow persons outside of the community to connect to friends and loved ones inside the community by sending emails to e-POB from where the container will relay the mail message by phone or printed delivery. We have also conducted workshops for digital storytelling / music production / photography and Videography using digital cameras and the computer as the base editing suite.
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