telecenter

THE BENINOIS NETWORK OF COMMUNITY TELE-SERVICES

Songhai is a project of a new African society whose mission is to create a better society that can take its place in world affairs. This is only possible if the actors in this movement experience an improvement in the quality of their social, economic, and intellectual lives. The new technologies of information and communication constitute a vital element in this process.
The need to improve production, organization, and productivity led Songhai to participate in the creation of community "telecenters" in the larger cities where Songhai sites exist: Porto-Novo (south east), Savalou (center) and Parakou (north).
The activities of the telecenters are integrated into the overall activities of Songhai.

OBJECTIVES

The Songhai community telecenters have the following objectives:

To increase the level of knowledge in each community by giving the citizens the means of procuring and exchanging information relevant to their socio-economic and professional activities.
To create within the Songhai community a culture of sharing information and experiences both internal and external.
To train the target groups (grassroots communities, pupils, entrepreneurs, health workers, businessmen, students, etc.) to appropriate and utilize the new technologies of information and communication.
To facilitate the acquisition and exchange of experiences among farmers and other members of the rural community.
To share technical results and experience gained by Songhai with other development actors on the continent through the new technologies in information and communication

On the whole, the Songhai telecenters are venues for transmitting and exchanging information and for rendering office services thanks to multimedia communication tools that are easily accessible to all.

Thanks tThanks to the partnership with IDRC, Songhai has been able to implement a network titled "Network of Information and Communication for Sustainable Agriculture in West Africa". Its first mission is to develop and test the contents of distance learning; its second is to identify and adopt technologies appropriate for networking with different key actors (students, entrepreneurs, teachers, etc.) within the framework of the promotion of sustainable agriculture in West Africa.

This project facilitated the satellite connection of the Porto-Novo telecenter, which has lead to the following benefits:

Development of distance learning.
Forums and discussion groups.
Development of multimedia courses on CD-ROM as well as on the Internet.
Provision of services accessible via the web.
Experimentation of an electronic supply and demand market of local products (agricultural commodity market).
Video conferencing.