The message is the medium

An SMS revolution that empowers rural communities

When Ravi Ghate started a pilot project called SMSOne in 2005,he had no idea his community micro newsletter would make headlines. Six years later,after winning accolades across the country,Ghate has started a new SMS projectEduVartawhich aims to create a knowledge grid that connects the rural and urban youth.

While SMSOne spread community news in villages through cellphone by employing school and college dropouts,EduVarta aims to empower the rural youth by acquainting them with educational and career options they have after finishing school.

It will spread information on colleges,courses,syllabi,cultural events,college news and employment news among youngsters throughout the state, says Ghate. In many ways,the idea behind the new project is similar to SMSOne. While the former employed a community head for every 1,000-1,500 families,who would message the news relevant to the respective communities,EduVarta identifies 5-10 youngsters in every taluka and sends them messages related to educational news that can be circulated in their respective talukas.

As of now,Ghate has managed to rope in around 70 colleges. Colleges can send out information regarding their own courses to us,and we in turn can forward that to the youngsters. The idea is to involve one college from every taluka, he says. The scheme costs Rs 33 annuallythey send 100 SMSes. He says that the aim is to reach all talukaseach has around 80-100 villages and about 1,000 students. The idea has even caught the fancy of researchers from Stanford University. Dr Paul Kim,chief technical officer of the university,has become a mentor for this project. Ghate says they also circulate news regarding village development projects and national alerts among youngsters so that they can display or spread the information in villages.

This year,Ghate will start a new concept called Prayaas. Between the youth in the urban areas and the rural ones,we found some interesting contrasts,Youngsters in the cities have always shown an inclination for social service but have not found a way to do so,and the youth in the rural areas have difficulty in getting guidance regarding their careers. All we will be doing is bridging the gap, he says.

We circulate a number to these youngsters who can call us for their queries. We then transfer the call to a student in the city who is pursuing a a particular course or doing a particular job so that he can give first-hand information regarding the course,the syllabus,admission,bank loans,jobs,etc. Since youngsters can connect with one another better,all we do is putting them in contact with one another.