Worlds Touch

Computer Training

Computer Training, originally uploaded by travelertrish.

Ramesh Prajapati, director of Resource Center for Rehab and Development (RCRD) and Ramesh Shrestha, director of Community-Based Rehab of Bhaktapur are all ears when we are discussing how technology can work for their respective organizations.

I spent three weeks in Bhaktapur with them this summer, and produced two web sites using WordPress and Flickr. I left them with a week's training under their belts as well as an operations manual that gave them complete control over their own web sites.

Royal Square

La PlaceSmall, originally uploaded by travelertrish.

On this first day of the kingless country here, this is a photo of the Royal Square in Bhaktapur.

So I spent the morning in a soup of mixed rock music, hip hop, sappy Nepali love songs and some pretty raunchy American stuff...at the cyber I've adopted. I can hook my laptop up here, which means that everything EVERYTHING E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G is faster. I've managed to complete the Community-Based Rehabilitation web site this morning. I had all the pages written, but I needed to upload the photos to Flickr, since they had been uploaded to Pushpa's account and he isn't around to link to, and then I needed to upload the text to the pages I've already created on WordPress.

Here's the link:

http://cbrbhaktapur.wordpress.com/

I could use some extra eyes on this, so anyone who has a little time and can page through and just note down any problems you see...this would be greatly appreciated. I'll get Ramesh to do it this afternoon, but the more eyes we can get on this, the more likely to catch some glaring horrible problem.

I would also like to tell you about a way somebody among you might want to help out here. Yesterday, we visited Dipendra, a guy in his 20s with a really severe case of cerebral palsy. He is really a twisted tangle of limbs confined for the most part to a tiny palette in his family home. His mother takes care of him, but there is literally no household income. They have nothing like Social Security Disability here. The thing is, this is a guy who has an excellent brain. He thinks, he squeezed out words in Newari, Nepali and...ENGLISH! He watches tv. He has opinions.

They've had doctors from the West look at Dipendra and they all just basically say, "Some kids just have to live with their limitations."

It costs about 500 Rupees a month to support this family. That's less than $10! So...would anyone like to come up with a year of support for this guy? If so, make your way to my Profile and click on the Worlds Touch donate page. (This is a bit of a gray area for a nonprofit...but we're talking such a tiny amount that I bet the you-know-what-department will let it pass under their radar for a good cause.) If you do it while I'm still here...until Friday...I can hand Ramesh the cash before we leave.

The Force Bless You.

Puppets

Puppets, originally uploaded by travelertrish.

We will donate this batch of beautiful puppets to the Thimi Day Care Center for the multiple-handicapped children there. One day just before I left for this trip, a lovely lady walked into my office at West End Ministries and handed me a sack with all these great little puppets. When I showed them yesterday to Ramesh, the coordinator of the community-based rehabilitation work, he was really thrilled. He said they often MAKE puppets with the kids and these will truly delight them. I personally love this sort of transfer from one culture to another. Worlds Touch...our world touches yours...it doesn't grab it, fix it, dominate it, or be dominated by it. Touch. Like these cool puppets. Click on the photo and then on the little album in the right margin to see all the puppets.

Surya, left, Ramesh and Ganga. Surya heads Resource Center for Rehabilitation and Development (FOREVER shortened to RCRD) and Ramesh heads Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR). In a word, RCRD does the training -- for family members, field workers, teachers, social workers and government officials-- and CBR does the direct service to people with disabilities.

Here it is, Sunday-day-off, and I have access to the office internet connection. RCRD's web site is finished for the time being. That is, it has everything they wanted and more. Some of you, bless your hearts, have already visited. Surya was tickled pink to learn he'd already had TEN visitors-- and WordPress excludes visits from your own computer, so these are YOU folks dropping by. Very cool. One web site down and one to go.

So now I have all afternoon, if we could all stand it, to write about living and serving in Bhaktapur, Nepal. I started to say "working," instead of "serving," but...and then I raised my eyes to the bulletin board in front of me and it says, "Work is not only about making a living; work is also about making a difference." This is Ramesh's desk. Ramesh runs the part of the organization here that does direct service to people with disabilities, mostly children. I just went through the photos for his web site and this is a batch of photos that are hard to get through. We're pretty squeamish as a people about disability, especially severe disfigurement.

This culture goes a long way to excluding children with disabilities, even from their own families. There is a deep shame about having a disabled child, and one thread in the culture says that this must be punishment for sins in a past life, or punishment for the family's sins. None of this is all that far from our own experience. And we have the advantage of surgery and braces and physical therapy and insurance, all of which contributes to there being a less VISIBLE handicapped population in our culture.

Even so, as the mother of a child with a very invisible (until the social situation exposes it to mostly typical lack of understanding and rejection) disability, as the friend to other mothers with children and sisters with disabilities... this particular job seems entirely appropriate. It helps that Surya is a guy who really "gets" technology. I could live here and feed him with a spoon. Would that my local org had that sort of intuitive insight into the value of technology. I've seen enough of the whole spectrum to realize that West End Ministries isn't off the map entirely, but these people here are "early adopters," while WEM is more in the "lagging back" position, with a few outright "resisters."

The First Web Site

After a fairly long discussion about what we could do for RCRD and what I could certainly work on, but it's not my forte (fund raising), we settled on the idea that I would do a web site for them. Did I already tell the joke about the amoeba? Because as soon as I'd agreed to do a web site, Surya was asking me to do two, one for him and the other for CBR.

Let's go into the difference between the two orgs. Resource Center for Rehabilitation and Development is Surya's outfit. It is first and foremost a training org, training families and field workers to deal with disabled folks (it is now not cool to call them handicapped, by the way...who knew?). RCRD also maintains a library of all sorts of documents about disability policy, disability law, disability information. And it is also an advocate on behalf of people with disabilities. They try to influence the government to enforce law, to uphold the policies they already have in place. CBR, Community-Based Rehab, is the organization that does the direct service. It is CBR that runs the Deaf School and the Deaf Clinic and works to get people the wheelchairs and crutches and physical therapy they need.

In one sense, RCRD trains people to work in CBR. CBR is dedicated to the idea that people with disabilities shouldn't be stuck in institutions but kept at home and in their own communities. RCRD works to fight the discrimination and ignorance that so often shadows disability.

Ramesh is the head CBR guy, as Surya is the head at RCRD. They are a pair of "early adopters," people who "get" technology, even though they don't really have a whole bunch of it around. Their computers are old and slow. They get the internet strictly during office hours, 10am to 5pm, six days a week. The Nepalese work six days a week, but only start work after their first big meal of the day. They generally roll in about 9:30, but if they don't make it until ten, nobody looks up.

I decided, after playing with Blogger, to put the site in WordPress. Surya wants to upload documents so that people can read in depth about policies and progress reports. I'm happy that he doesn't insist I put all that United_Nations_ese on the site itself. He's been fabulous to work with. Getting what he wants, but also giving me gobs of leeway.

Here's the url to the site: www.rcrdnepa.wordpress.com.

It's still a work in progress, but we're making progress. And it's just so much fun to work with people who are excited to be learning this stuff and who really feel it is important for their organization.

from an email to a friend about what I'm doing...

JF and I are staying in the guesthouse facilities of an org that specializes in handicapped kids and handicap rights and training. I'm doing some low-tech web solutions for them, including either blogger or wordpress and flickr and maybe vodpod for their videos. they need at least a minimal internet presence...I will also introduce them to kiva. it might be useful for some fo their specific projects with individuals with disability.

the problem with wordpress is that it is impossible to embed a google calendar in it, and I do like that for events and stuff.

Web Sites for RCRD/CBR

Jean-Francois, my husband and partner in this venture to Nepal and India, came along for the meeting yesterday with Surya Prajapati and Ramesh Shrestha, the two men in charge of RCRD/CBR. Before we are finished with this project, we ought to be able to tell you what the difference is between the two organizations. They inhabit the same building and both are concerned with helping the handicapped. It is Surya, head of RCRD, with whom I have had the most contact so far, but that may be because his English is just one notch better. Both men are members of Servas, a peace-through-hospitality organization that JF and I belong to, so that is how I met them in the first place. I was in Kathmandu doing a database for another nongovernmental organization (always simply shorthanded as NGO here) and was calling various Servas hosts just to broaden my contacts in the area. Surya and I hit it off, and I did a little database work for him.

This time, without other volunteer prospects on the horizon, and with an encouraging email from Surya, we came directly to Bhaktapur, not even starting in Kathmandu. After a trip to that fabled but now overcrowded city yesterday, we are thanking our lucky stars that we did.

The main concern that RCRD/CBR have, Surya told us yesterday in the meeting, is funding. The core source of their funding has been Save the Children Norway, but the international NGOs that have funded projects here in Nepal want their fundees to become self-sufficient, and so after some years, they "phase out" their support. RCRD/CBR finds themselves in this situation.

They realize they need to have a web site, though, and that is closer to my expertise than funding. I'm looking at this project and see what they're doing that might interest my Rotarian friends back home. I asked surya to introduce me to his Rotarian friends so we could discuss the possibility of a matching grant to help the organization out.

We haven't talked about what they might want to do with a matching grant, but rest assured I'll have come up with something before I leave there. In the meantime, I'll be writing about the process of working with them on their web sites.

Web Sites, TWO!

I told Surya that his web site idea was a little like a one-celled animal that quite naturally divides in two and better not divide again because FOUR web sites would be more than I could manage in three weeks. But we had a really wonderful talk this morning and it's decided: they don't have a decent web site and we have a very simple and easy solution for them. I'll write more about this at home and post tomorrow, I hope.

Nepal Ideas

I have always found that trying to set up technology projects in Nepal before I get there is both frustrating and futile. My Nepalese--and it can also be said, my North Indian--contacts like to discuss this sort of thing face to face.

Which is why I'm on my Summer 2008 Worlds Touch trip to the Himalaya with only one project in my pocket, the health camp with the Darjeeling Rotary Club. We've had that one in our pocket since I came back from my Rotary scholarship in late 2006. That's a great opportunity-- the local doctors in the city donate one or two days of their time and Worlds Touch pays for medicine, travel expenses, and some follow-up visits to specialists in town for those with serious illnesses. We will be working with Prolad Roka, the Darjeeling Rotarian with the most techie interest in documentation, to get the whole event in photos and videos this time. Many people saw the video that Prolad produced last year and were quite moved by the help these local doctors provide to folks who live too far away from medical facilities.

What else are we planning?

Our first stop is at Resource Center for Rehabilitation and Development/Community Based Rehabilitation (RCRD/CBR for short) in Bhaktapur, Nepal. This is an organization with a healthy interest in using technology to further its mission. Surya and Ramesh, the two guys who lead this organization, are what we call "early adopters." They are ready and willing to learn about the capabilities of the software and hardware they've already got and to use it. These folks were putting videos into their PowerPoint presentations before I knew how to go about it.

They have been talking about social enterprise solutions to the funding dilemma since the beginning. They had the foresight to built guest accommodations in their office building, and this is where we'll stay when we land in Nepal  tomorrow.

We don't have a plan yet about what techie stuff I'll be doing with them...As I said, all my Nepalese friends like to do business face to face. But I've got several tricks up my sleeve and it could be that one or several of them will appeal to my friends.

The other idea I've got came in the mail today. FIT Nepal, Forum for Information Technology Nepal, is putting together a conference for late June on the topic of Rural Telecentres. Since I created a "telecenter" at West End Ministries where I've been serving as a technology and marketing capacity builder sponsored by the Volunteers in Service to America program.

Maybe FIT Nepal would like some help with their web site. Or maybe we could visit some of the telecenters around the countryside and take photos and videos for a promotional or fund raising campaign. Or perhaps I could present at this conference. Or do some training at some of the centers.

I emailed their director, Allen Bailochan Tuladhar, and we've got an appointment on Monday morning to talk about what we might want to do.

I am also in contact with my other Nepali friends and colleagues at Lumanti, Support Group for Shelter. I created a database for them while I was still a back-to-school-mom student. I have a whole batch of beautiful knit puppets that one of our West End Ministries supporters gave me to take to the children of Nepal. I have been thinking the Child Groups at Lumanti would maybe be a good place for these puppets.
So there's stuff to do, and some contacts. And nothing signed on any dotted line. Your basic Worlds Touch trip.

Here are some photos of Community-Based Rehab, where we'll start:

This is the building where we'll stay.

Worlds Touch and Flip Video to the World

We-e-e-e-e're Back!

It's the eve of a Worlds Touch trip to India and Nepal. I'll be working on this blog over the course of the next few days, to see if I can't bring it back into the fold.

This is the official blog of Worlds Touch, the international organization that is dedicated to bridging the digital divide across the globe, but specifically in the Himalayan mountains.  Why that particular place? Because the folks there speak Nepali, a language I've been working on for the past three or four years, and because It's a part of the world I want to keep returning to.

Of course, social work is social work, no matter where you do it, and Worlds Touch is technology social work. Or maybe I should say social work in technology?

Okay, so where are we?

We have one project that is confirmed for this trip, a Health Camp with the Rotarians in Darjeeling, India. That is strictly NON-technological, except insofar as the video we're planning to shoot to document what the health camp is and does in the mountains of India. We are bringing our Flip Videos, two of the three bought in the promotion that  PureDigital , the company who makes them offered nonprofits this year. It was a sweet deal: Buy one, get one free.

We furnished a very simple grant application and they approved both Worlds Touch and my last organization, West End Ministries. So now WEM has four and we have two. It turns out High Point University, where my husband Jean-Francois Llorens works has four more. So this looks like a coming technology-- a low-tech camcorder, a simple hand-held video camera, a dead-easy-to-use gadget that allows you to download the videos directly to your computer.

I'll be posting some of the videos we've taken lately here and on the recently updated web site of West End Ministries, one of the WT projects we accomplished during my year as a VISTA volunteer.

In the meantime, I'm frantically searching for phone numbers and addresses of my contacts in Nepal. I haven't been to that beautiful country for three years. I'm going to purge the photo albums on this blog to the Nepal photos, and may actually cull that group further.