A Typical Day at a CN in Uganda

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Findings are based on a one-person’s observations at a few sites in Uganda.

Here is the link for more information

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Hello @Lillian - thank you for making visible the invisible or as you say the “unregistered success stories of Community Networks (CN)”, especially the well-written story of the Gwokke-Keni ICT Center in Patongo town council, Agago District in Northern Uganda!

It is a super interesting insight around the different lives of the kind of volunteers in this centre. I love the stories of the youthful volunteers who take up positions despite stigmatized context for working in particular facilities as well as the retirees dedicated for their own reasons. Also there are some interesting aspects of what motivates a volunteer when there are no financial benefits.

Your story is so rich in detail of why centres have erratic hours of operation (even a gender story!), the popular use of youtube by youth and young mothers as well as the use of the centre for other purposes like skills development.

The challenges are also numerous as you mention in your story and I wonder if there are any particular challenge we can help you to solve in this Q&A platform at all? We now have a whole community to assist you!! Please do let us know.

Any other CNs that have similar stories of volunteerism in rural areas or the diversified use of the ICT space to bring in community members?

Thank you also, Lilian for also sharing with us some of the indigenous terminology in your story!! Gwokke-Keni: “Take care of yourself”

Kathleen

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Thank you Kathleen.

Sure it will be very helpful to get ideas about strategies on how to control free access to internet services from other CNs.

Both CNs I visited in July pointed that they still cannot charge for internet use because even if they did so without any control measures, the users tend to share the passwords.

So I see there is a need to have a kind of software that restricts sharing or at least to control the sharing of passwords. I promised to find out and get back to the two communities with these details.

Wondering if any CNs here can share more details.

Thank you

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3 posts were split to a new topic: Captive portal experience sharing

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Thanks @imlaker Immaculate for replying to @Lillian - I hope that the captive portals meets BOSCO and the users’ needs. Would be great to hear other alternatives being used by CNs.