Citizen Engagement in Practice - Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement - page 68

These pilot projects are particularly relevant to this topic as they show
(i) examples of building capacity for engagement in planning and decision-
making, (ii) the importance of appropriate learning opportunities, and (iii)
the key role of tools for supporting learning which are designed to the suit
the characteristics of the people involved. This is especially important and
challenging when seeking to engage people who lack basic literacy skills
in design and decision-making. As the Reflect ICTs project appears to of-
fer many lessons and good practice in successful engagement with people
who are severely disadvantaged in many respects - including education,
economic status and social position, we believe it worth reporting on two
of the pilots here. We have therefore selected pilots in Uganda and India
for analysis and discussion.
In the participative process used in all the pilots in the Reflect ICTs pro-
ject, facilitators recruited from the community were trained by the Reflect
organisation and supported by the pilot team. Groups, or circles, of people
in villages were set up according to participatory principles, to discuss lo-
cal issues and develop action plans. The role of the facilitator was to sup-
port each group. A tool was developed to help the groups think about and
discuss a range of topics. This consisted of five resource sheets, covering
respectively the Value of information; What makes information useful;
Documenting local knowledge; Accessing information and Identifying
information gaps. The facilitators for each group, supported by the pilot
teams, led the articulation and analysis of communication issues identified
by participants.
(i) Reflect ICTs Project - Uganda Pilot
The pilot is located in the Kabarole district near the border with the Demo-
cratic Republic of Congo. It involves Reflect groups and six school-based
youth groups. Most people in the community are subsistence farmers, living
in absolute poverty. Their lack of information is seen as a major barrier to
improving their lives. For example, without knowledge of the prices at
which produce is sold at market, people sell their goods at half the market
price. The result of the Reflect circle analysis of communication patterns,
information flows and needs showed that the most widely used means of
communication were talking, meeting and drumming. These were also
considered to be the most useful ways of communicating. Radio was avail-
able but less affordable and although video was seen as desirable it was
less accessible. Analyses of information needs revealed the priorities of
group participants, listed in Table 4.4.