ICT for Development - infoDev

Under the Viva Rio “My First Job” program, Future
Stations are directly linked to employment agencies
and employers. The stations also act as sales outlets
for “Fair Trade” clothes produced by local seamstresses
and provide news items for community newspaper articles
as part of other Viva Rio projects.
Process
The following ten steps are used to set up each
Future Station:
1. Contact associations and community institutions to
present the project proposal.
2. Select the location of Future Station facilities, using
criteria such as street location, number of people
passing through the vicinity, and accessibility.
3. Construct the Future Station. This activity can
range from adapting existing facilities to installing
computers.
4. Alongside step 3, carry out field research in the
community to identify local demand for products
and services.
5. Develop a business plan, taking into account
existing community activities and projects to
avoid replication.
6. Hire staff: generally one manager, two assistants,
and one trainee.
7. Train new staff.
8. Share the project proposal with the community
for its approval.
9. Print and distribute invitations to the opening
of the Future Station.
10.Open the Future Station for business.
Impact/Results
The Future Station monitoring system enables managers
to make historic comparisons of results in
order to identify best practices.
Future Stations average 170 Internet users per day
and 200 computer students per month. As of
September 2003, Viva Rio has been responsible for
local youth completing over 60,000 elementary and
high school diplomas.
The project has generated employment, promoted
the inclusion of low-income communities in ICT
education, trained business managers, and opened
up the employment market to community members.
Viva Rio now has a full-time team of around 20
reporters who write articles aimed at changing the
image of favelas. They use the Future Stations as
both a source of material and an outlet for their
articles, which are published through the Internet
portal. Local professional newspapers are already
using these articles as a resource.
Key Issues
Partnership
Each Future Station is owned and operated by the local
community in partnership with Viva Rio. The idea
behind this partnership is to increase the potential
sustainability of each telecenter by placing it in the
hands of the communities they are intended to serve.
External partners learn from the project and help integrate
its activities into various social and economic
sectors in Rio de Janeiro. Funding partners include the
Higher Institute of Religion Studies (ISER), Productive
Restructuring and Local Economic Development
Laboratory, Federal University Fluminense, Brazilian
Support Service to Small and Medium Enterprises
(SEBRAE), Globo.com, Microsoft, Cisco, Worker’s
Support Center (CAT), Petropolis Tecnopolis, and the
Electronic Computer Core (UFRJ).
The Committee for Democracy in Technology (CDI,
another ICT-based NGO in Brazil), Viva Rio, and
Cisco Academy work together to produce software for
the Future Stations. Cisco also offers scholarships to
young people from the favelas, as well as courses for
paying students.
Viva Rio administers the Future Stations project. It is
supported by the National Bank for Economic and
Social Development (BNDES), the Inter-American
Development Bank, FININVEST, and the Rio de Janeiro
Municipal Labor Secretariat.
Target groups
Approximately 28 percent of Future Station users are
teenagers between 13 and 20 years of age. Another
42 percent are young adults between 21 and 30 years
of age. Both groups reside in the shanty towns of
Rio de Janeiro. A good gender balance exists among
users (52 percent are male). The largest social group
targeted by the Future Stations is, however, young
females. All these groups recognize that Future
Stations work as ”development centers” inside a
Lessons Learned from Seventeen infoDev Projects
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