The Reddiarchatram Seed Growers Association at the village knowledge center of Kannivadi is an example of knowledge management at the grassroots. Indigenous knowledge is used in ways that provide for profitable livelihoods in a rural community context. The main driver for the success of this association is the horizontal flow of knowledge, facilitated by the village knowledge center and a network of farmers, seed growers, market operators, researchers and traders. The community has created a strong network, mainly through self-help groups, to access information on market prices, weather conditions, pest control, etc. Elected locals manage the network, comprising also marginal farmers whose substantial contribution is the result of their hands-on experience and indigenous knowledge.

The MSSRF model is based on participatory approaches to social development. The Foundation sets up a new knowledge centre only if the village provides the building, the electricity and the telephone connection. The centres are run entirely by volunteers from the local community. Also, the fundamental philosophy of the organisation is evident in the conscious focus on community participation, inclusion of women, people’s livelihoods and indigenous knowledge.

Women from disadvantaged social backgrounds have given considerable leadership in the IT experiments of MSSRF. Female self-help groups run most of the village knowledge centres. In Embalam, where a community knowledge centre is located in the village temple, the centre is a platform for catalysing women’s confidence. Women are often initially attracted to the centre because they can find their friends there, or gather there to chat as their children browse the Internet. The self-help groups provide secretarial services, such as the typing of job applications, CVs, subsidy applications to the government, etc. Although the panchayat initially was not convinced to allow the women to run the centre, the added value of the daily information the women post on the temple notice-board benefits the entire village and support has thus increased.

The Nallavadu fishing village illustrates how volunteers have been able to establish a fair degree of interaction with local government officials through the knowledge centre. The volunteers obtained a number of frequently needed documents from the government officials and digitised these. When the villagers need one of these forms, they are able to access them from the knowledge centre, and pay a small fee for the service. This saves the villagers valuable time, but more than that, it allows them to access subsidy programmes which they often didn’t know existed or to which government bureaucrats would deny them access.

The local government has grown to appreciate the efficiency and effectiveness of this system and now accepts digitally transmitted documents from the villagers, via the knowledge centre. Further, important government information or news is transmitted in the village from the knowledge centre loudspeakers; likewise, the government counts on the knowledge centre to transmit messages to the villagers.

The community centre that is built around IT infrastructure is much more than an ‘access’ centre, in the MSSRF case. Posited as ‘knowledge’ centre, the model strives to bring to communities a value addition that they can harness to change their lives. In the hamlet of Samiarpatty, the villagers have been provided with a digital camera, a CD burner and a computer with touch screen. Two local volunteers have been trained to use these technologies and they employ the state-of-the-art equipment for adult literacy activities. Villagers are shown how to use the digital camera and to take photographs of things that are important to or of interest to them. Subsequently, these photos are mounted, with the assistance of the volunteers, in a PowerPoint slideshow. The names of the items are written underneath each image by the volunteers ("this is my house", or "these are my children"). Finally, the slideshows are burnt onto a CD. The slideshows are used to teach basic literacy. People start with recognisable items and words, and when they get bored with the material or complete it, a new CD can be made at low cost.

Also, many get very comfortable with basic IT skills.

Adapted from a report titled "From Beedees to CDs: Snapshots from a Journey through India’s Rural Knowledge Centres" which appeared in the IICD Research Brief – No 4, January 2003.