ICT Center Opening

D.Net will inaugurate the ICT centers in four locations in the first phase as a part of research on relationship of ICT and improvement of people's living in rural Bangladesh . All the ICT centers will not follow the prototype of our ideal ICT center; rather there will be difference from one center to another to some extent. Some ICT centers will use offline content while the other will be equipped with broadband internet connection. Some centers will have 3 or 4 persons who will be the center manager, infomediary and guard where as others will have 7 persons of the proposed designations.

ICT centers will be open from 8AM to 8 PM everyday. Rural people can send any question to D.Net help desk with the help of infomediaries. People can also get solutions to their problems related to agriculture, health, education, law, human rights, non farm activity, disaster management, appropriate technology and on any other issue from the database available in the ICT centers. Infomediaries will serve the people, even the illiterate people will be facilitated to have access to information they need. Women infomediaries will visit the households in villages of catchments specially to serve the women who cannot visit the ICT centers. Detail form and structure of every ICT center and available services will be provided in our website later.

The schedule for opening of our ICT centers is as following.

Nilphamari: 22 September, 2005
(Location: Village: Babrijhar, Thana : Nilphamari Sadar, District:Nilphamari)

Bagerhat: 17 September, 2005
(Location: Village: Shelabunia, Thana : Mongla, District: Bagerhat)

Netrokona: 13 October, 2005
(Location: Village: Kumri, Thana : Netrokona Sadar, District: Netrokona)

Noakhali: 20 October, 2005
(Location: Khasherhat, Union: Charbata, Thana : Shubornochar, District: Noakhali)


Focus Group Discussion (FGD) at Nilphamari & Bagerhat

FGD in each area will be conducted in two phases . First phase will be only women and second phase for both male and female participants. Both two phases of FGD will be in the same day in one area (preferably women focused FGD in the morning and general FGD for male and female in the afternoon). Only one group from D.Net will conduct both FGDs in Bagerhat and Nilphamari. In the FGD with women, issues like health, law and family planning will be emphasized. In the general FGD, general problems of the village and the aspects which will not be covered in the baseline survey will be discussed.

Date: 14 Aug – 16 Aug. FGD of Bagerhat will be on 14 th of August and in Nilphamari will be on 16 th of August.