IATP Monitoring and Evaluation Report - IREX

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A 37-year-old veterinarian from Imishli, Azerbaijan Mehman Aliev created a website for his work to raise public health awareness. With IATP guidance, Aliev created a website on highly contagious and rare animal diseases. “After our website went up, we received a lot of inquires about a new strain of rabies and the avian flu. We conducted some research on the internet and then provided medical advice and recommendations to the public. We couldn’t have managed this work so efficiently without the resource of the IATP center,” he said. Another community-oriented initiative was spearheaded by teacher and head of a local NGO in Imishli Kudrat Zeinalov. He reports the IATP center helped him prepare a grant proposal to improve the infrastructure of his rural community. His proposal was selected and the project will be awarded AZM 36,000 ($41,000) to renovate rural roads in the region. 18 The effectiveness of IATP technical training was explored during the IATP Trainees online survey. The survey revealed that 100% of the surveyed IATP training participants found the knowledge and experience they acquired at IATP training “useful” or “very useful” for their academic and professional activities. Elena Vashishina, an accomplished singer from Zhitomir, Ukraine, was able to search for international music competitions in Poland and Belarus in which to compete after taking IATP internet training. As a result, her chorus took first prize in Poland. “Everything started from internet training,” Vashishina noted. 19 Sofia Rusu, history teacher and head of the Methodology Center of the Gagauzian Education Department from Comrat, Gagauzia, Moldova, explained in a focus group how she used IT skills to help address social issues with her students. Rusu sent 56 of her high school students to IREX technical training at the IATP center in Comrat as initial preparation for a class on domestic violence. With their new skills, the class carried out a small project during which they discovered two cases of domestic violence in their school. Two girls experienced extreme pressure from their parents to bring home the highest grades and when they earned less than perfect grades, the girls were severely punished for it. The classmates conducted internet research and located information to help educate the girls about resources available to them that might help improve their relationship with their parents. 20 IREX’s IATP program touches many aspects of people’s lives. Fifty-one percent of surveyed IATP training participants used their skills in their personal lives, while 58% used their skills for professional development. Thirty-eight percent stated their acquired knowledge and skills helped them in the academic sphere and 25% used their training in the social sphere. Almost all agreed (99%) that ICT skills gained through IATP training improved their connection to people and/or other organizations. ICT for Educational Development In a focus group discussion, history teacher and head of the Methodology Center of Gaugazia’s Department of Education in Moldova, Sofia Rusu, explained how an IATP center is regularly incorporated in history classes of local high schools. In the autonomous and diverse region, teachers do not merely rely on textbooks to teach national and regional history. With the help of free internet access at the local IATP center, teachers asked students to research a historical event on the internet and find competing accounts describing the same event, learning to evaluate source credibility in the process. As Rusu explains, “At the IATP center, our history teachers and their students search for information from different perspectives of history. We look for different sources on the Web and various historical documents. Thus, we provide students—and even teachers—with the opportunity to draw their own conclusions based upon different points of view and different sources of information. Both teachers and students learn to do research, analyze information and draw their own conclusions, and, in the process they develop a deeper understanding of history and perhaps a more informed kind of patriotism.” 21 Forty-year-old head of the Literature and Drama Department at Vinnitsa Puppet Theatre in Ukraine, Margarita Shapoval also spoke about the gap IATP centers fill for educational systems that have not been fully modernized. “We come to the IATP center, and we see…how many people are learning computer and internet skills. At the time I graduated from school, the educational system was completely different and people of my generation definitely experience gaps in our education. IATP is filling this gap very well. People trained at IATP not only receive knowledge and skills, but as a result, they then use these skills to benefit the whole of society,” Shapoval observed. 22 18 Midline focus group discussion report, IATP users group, Imishli, Azerbaijan, April 9, 2009 19 IATP Trainees Online Survey, October7—November 27, 2008 20 Midline focus group discussion report, IATP users group, Comrat, Gagauzia, Moldova, April 7, 2009 21 Midline focus group discussion report, IATP users group, Comrat, Gagauzia, Moldova, April 7, 2009 22 Midline focus group discussion report, IATP users group, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, April 2, 2009 18
Thanks to IATP’s assistance and resources, 57-yearold teacher Rustam Badalov equipped his rural school in Ferghana, Uzbekistan, with a computer lab and offered an after-school ICT program to interested students. Badalov received his own ICT training from IATP in 2001. Badalov is an English teacher at a school more than 30 km away from the IATP center in Ferghana. His school had a computer science teacher, but lacked the skills (and the equipment) to properly train students. Badalov began bringing groups of his students (and later students from other schools) to the IATP center in Ferghana to receive ICT training. In 2003, he applied for and acquired ten computers through IREX’s Computers for Schools in Uzbekistan program. Now with equipment at the school, Badalov himself began holding IATP training sessions in computer and internet basics after school, to make the lessons more convenient for students. During school, he began to incorporate ICT into his English classes and then helped other interested teachers use the computer room to do the same. In collaboration with IATP, Badalov is credited with bringing ICT education to more than 1,000 students who might otherwise not have access in rural Ferghana. Recently, he learned that a former student to whom he had taught computer skills went on to study IT at a university and is now being hired as his school’s new computer science teacher. C. Evaluating IATP Internet Access and Technical Training Nearly half (47%) of surveyed IATP users report not having been able to use computers and the internet before coming to an IATP center. Almost all of the respondents (81%) found IATP guidance an important factor in their ICT education admitting that before IATP they had no clear idea what the internet was and thought it was just for sending e-mails. Kindergarten teacher Olga Novikova from Comrat, Gagauzia, Moldova, shared her thoughts at a focus group discussion, “After learning computer science at my university, I couldn’t even press the necessary keys on a keyboard, [after IATP training] I can do complicated things and now even my ten-year-old son is impressed.” 23 Tatiana Rusnac, a 50-year-old librarian from Chisinau, Moldova, said, “Even though there is a lot of new information to learn, day-byday I feel more confident with what I’m doing—I’m not afraid of a computer any more.” 24 According to focus group discussions in all of the host countries surveyed, assistance from IATP administrators (as well as occasionally from other IATP users) when conducting Web research is a highly valued resource of IREX’s program and distinguishes IATP centers from internet cafes and other internet access centers. Center administrators routinely help guide users in the most effective way to retrieve information from the internet (i.e. suggesting key words/phrases for well-refined searches, referring users to relevant websites, etc.). Georgian IT student, Natia Terunashvili, finally realized after visits to the local IATP center the importance of setting objectives when conducting research on the internet and connected it to the overall efficiency of using the internet as a source of information, “If people use the internet without any purpose or intention, then there won’t be any use for the internet—not for the user personally, nor for society.” 25 At another focus group discussion, Lyudmila Pikovskaya, a 56- year-old Information Center consultant from Vinnitsa, Ukraine, drew this conclusion when speaking about what makes IATP users different from those who had not yet visited the IATP center, “IATP users know better what they want—they have goals, they know how to search for information, and they are more purposeful.” Another focus group participant in Ukraine, Margarita Shapoval of the Vinnitsa Puppet Theatre added, “People who visit the IATP center always help each other. If somebody has more expertise in something than someone else, they assist the other. [The IATP center] is also a place to exchange ideas and experiences.” 26 Vladimir Bogat, a 40-year-old teacher and author of child development books from Tiraspol, Transnistria, Moldova, said, “I use the IATP center for my work, for communication with my publishers abroad.” Further into the focus group discussion he noted, “I would not be able to [use the internet for my work] if I did not get assistance from the people working [at the IATP center]. They show me resources and websites that are useful to me.” Also from Tiraspol, Transnistria, Moldova, economics student Mariya Bevz, said that she faced a lack of information in local libraries on the topic of consulting while writing her thesis. In her opinion, the internet was the only source that could provide the information she needed as consulting was still a new topic. “If I did not know the appropriate website to go to, administrators would always suggest a direction. They know my needs well and they care for us. In computer clubs, administrators don’t care,” she noted. 27 24 Midline focus group discussion, IATP users group, Chisinau, Moldova, April 2, 2009 25 Midline focus group discussion report , Internet laggards group, Gori, Georgia, April 14, 2009 26 Midline focus group discussion report, IATP users group, Vinnitsa, Ukraine, April 2, 2009 27 Midline focus group discussion report, IATP users group, Tiraspol, Transnistria, Moldova, April 6, 2009 19
Page 1 and 2: INTERNET ACCESS AND TRAINING PROGRA
Page 3 and 4: Executive summary .................
Page 5 and 6: I. INTRODUCTION IATP aimed to spur
Page 7 and 8: IATP users coming to IATP centers i
Page 9 and 10: IV. OBJECTIVE 1: Citizens are Empow
Page 11 and 12: NGO Officials IATP also partnered w
Page 13 and 14: Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs have pr
Page 15 and 16: 6 Midline focus group discussion re
Page 17: Implementation of knowledge and ski
Page 21 and 22: IATP center contacts where they can
Page 23 and 24: Libraries were also sometimes menti
Page 25 and 26: F. IATP Responds to Internally Disp
Page 27 and 28: G. IATP Empowers Youth in Turkmenis
Page 29 and 30: During the focus group she announce
Page 31 and 32: Year One : • 61 in-country online
Page 33 and 34: Natalya Polyakova, a 51-year-old do
Page 35 and 36: Objective 3 Outcomes : Year One:
Page 37 and 38: Living with HIV/AIDS (network.org.u
Page 39 and 40: ment. The deputy decided to provide
Page 41 and 42: Tajik.” Through IATP’s free tec
Page 43 and 44: VIII. CONCLUSIONS A.Summary of Find
Page 45: there still is a need for free, qua

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