When i saw a request for information on the ICT4D Facebook group, I wanted to point to Dadamac and Fantsuam Foundation (FF) - but simply pointing isn't really enough - an explanation is needed.
The request was from Jam Gonzaga - It said "does any of you has a link about how ICT4D is applied in the various sectors associated with development undertakings."
Regarding "the various sectors associated with development undertakings" Fantsuam Foundation is involved in most sectors of development. This is because it is embedded in its local community - and that is why "it does everything". It's a bit like the difference between being an extended family (which cares about everything) or just being "the school" (with its clear focus on education) or just being "the clinic" (with its clear focus on health).
FF is like an extremely extended family. A family is a collection of interconnected people who care about everything in each others lives from birth to death, and that includes health, education, housing, earning a living, food, water, phone calls, the power supply and getting from A to B. People who work at FF tend to remain "part of the family" long after they leave. From my first visit there I was invited to think of it as "my second home" - and that is certainly a feeling that is easy to get at FF.
Fantsuam Foundation's mission is "To eliminate poverty and disadvantage through integrated developement programs." and its goal is "To be the most effective model of integrated development in West Africa." This wide reach is its great strength - but it also causes difficulities in explaining what it does. "Top down" thinking is often related to tighlty defined, short-term deliverables - but organisations like FF are long-term. Asking FF for short term deliverables on some of its deeply integrated programmes is as irrelevant as asking a family for its business plan - the metrics are simply not apporpriate.
So what about the ICT? That is integrated as well. FF teaches about ICT, it also uses ICT, and it supplies Internet services through the social business that it set up - Zittnet.
How does FF actually use ICT? It uses it in most of the ways that probably most other people in the ICT4D group use ICT - to communicate and to manage its services more effectively. That's why it's not easy to point to FF and say "here is ICT4D in action" - because at FF "ICT4D" is not some special add-on or some specifc fixed term project - it is part of life.
How about Dadamac? What "connection" does Dadamac have with FF and ICT4D? There are two main answers to that question. One part of "the connection" is mainly internal and one is mainly external - but there is overlap. Everything in Dadamac overlaps everything else - even when it seems to be very separate. Like FF, Dadamac has emerged over the years in response to needs, and needs are always complicated, ovelapping and intertwined. Dadamac and FF are sister organisaions.
The internal part of the Dadamac-FF connection includes Dadamac's weekly UK-Nigeria online meetings and our shared information-handling structures and strategies - some of which you can see in action at www.dadamac.net. The external part of the connection is our outreach through the UK to other parts of the ICT4D community.
If you are interested here are some links to help you dig deeper.
- "Why Dadamac? - Dadamac - the Internet-enabled alternative to top-down development " http://dadamac.posterous.com/dadamac-the-internet-enabled-alternative-to-t
- UK-Nigeria Dadamac team and meetings - http://www.dadamac.net/network/uk-nigeria-dadamac-team
- Dadamac Limited - Local action with global perspective - http://www.dadamac.co.uk/index.html
- Monthly digest - Looking back at September and forward to October - http://www.dadamac.net/digest/09-2011
You are welcome to contact me for more information.