Most of the Indian villages suffer from isolation and the cause of this isolation is based in poverty and geography.
However, poverty does not prevent people from making sustainable economies for themselves given opportunities, equality and alternatives for better decision making.
Villages in Development and Learning Foundation (ViDAL) works for for the cause of rural development by using Information and Communication Technologies.
The primary divide between the haves and have-nots is sociological and economical before it is digital. The majority of the world's poverty arises from such a divide. In India, rural development challenges revolve around caste, class and power. Mere provision of electronic resources without enabling environments for people to make positive use of them can not guarantee any social benefit and might even increase the means of exploitation of those who are in a position of power.
In the words of Kenneth Keniston of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ".. the question is not how to use information technologies, or even whether to use them, but under which circumstances, if any, information technologies can be a means - the most cost-effective means - of helping ordinary Indians, especially those in the weaker sectors of the society, meet their fundamental needs and achieve their basic rights. Put this way, the question is not only a philosophical but an empirical one: it requires examining on-going efforts in India to achieve just those purposes, to see if and how they work."
In the recent times, there had been a great push towards taking electronic revolution to the last mile to alleviate poverty. However, there are not many clear examples of poverty reduction driven by the people themselves.
This is partly because the majority of these efforts are anchored on market driven approaches rather than creating new markets which obviously requires a more long term commitment to change. The social impact of such models in enabling people to take charge of their lives is also yet to be seen in a profound way. The world is still watching to see and learn from experiments where individual and community knowledge has led to knowledge integration that will change the policy environment for enhanced flow of economics for community development. Knowledge is a commodity whose full effect on economic and social development is yet to be fully realised.
ViDAL efforts are based on some of these fundamental ideas that enable individual and community empowerment. To achieve these objectives ViDAL has COW project, which cuts across investment, infrastructure and illiteracy - the three principal barriers for using electronics and information technology in the villages. This is done by COW through an intermediary chosen from the villages called "Information Provider" who can understand the cultural nuances of village development.
