|
Solar Cooking:
Does it relate to ICTs?
It may seem strange that a technology firm offers training in solar cooking.
How do the two relate? They relate the way all knowledge relates to information and communication
technologies (ICTs). Videos, webpages, online discussion groups, email, and digital documents
are great ways to share information of interest, whether to your friend next door, or to strangers around the world.
When Carole St. Laurent first went to Nigeria, solar cooking was one of the new ideas
that the Ago-Are community was interested in. With fuelwood becoming more scarce and expensive, and
kerosene and coal prices rising, people found cooking fuel consuming too much time and money.
So Carole conducted online research about solar cooking, and passed on some
good information to her friends in Nigeria.
But this was not enough. Perhaps because the information was not in the most appropriate
format, it was not acted upon. In Nigeria,
the variety of local languages, varying literacy levels, and strong oral traditions,
mean that English text is not necessarily a good training medium, although English is the
official language. Carole began wondering if locally created videos would be a more effective
method of communicating about solar cooking. Two local organizations were excited about
collaborating with fluidIT solutions to try this approach,
and the Solar Cooking and Video Project was born.
First, Carole did some capacity
building in Nigeria on solar cooking, video production and editing, and Internet tools like Yahoo! Groups and
weblogs. With the local partners, the Ago-Are Community Information Centre, and Fantsuam Foundation,
we created two videos in local languages: one about how to build solar cookers in Yoruba, and one about how
to use them in Hausa. They can save families money on fuel, increase their health by purifying water for free,
help the environment through saving trees and combustible fuels. It reduces women's workloads by
letting them do other things while their food cooks relatively unattended, and save time fetching and chopping firewood.
ICTs and Solar Cooking.
They do relate.
|
|
