IATP Monitoring and Evaluation Report - IREX

Wikis: These internet tools offer unprecedented
opportunities for real-time collaboration on documents,
projects, and resources between people in
different (often remote) locations. According to
the findings of the Web content online survey, the
overwhelming majority of respondents 91% found
wiki resources “useful and convenient as a datasharing
tool.” One hundred fifteen wiki resources
have been developed to date by IATP users who
took part in IATP wiki training.
Ilya Sagaidak of Belarus used a wiki to narrate the
story of his journey retracing the historical 9 th century
trade route along the Dvina, Dnieper, Lovat,
and Volkhov Rivers which connected ancient Russia
with the Middle East. His blog sparked renewed
interest in historical tourism in the region. A lecturer
of history at the Belarusian State University in
Minsk, Sagaidak has been learning ICT skills at IATP
since 2006. He published the wiki “From Varangians
to Greeks” (http://ancientway.iatp.by) in the
spring of 2008. Narrated by Sagaidak, the ancient
account embodied in the Wiki generated intense
interest in history lovers from Belarus, Ukraine,
and Russia. 93
Three medical professionals from the Central Hospital
in Garm, Tajikistan, used Wiki pages to develop
local language content in the medical field,
at the same time improving educational resources
for their students. The three were recruited in an
IATP outreach presentation targeting medical practitioners
at Garm’s Central Hospital in February
2009. After completing their IATP coursework in
computer and internet skills and advanced training
in Web 2.0 technologies in March and April, they
created a Wiki site for their students in the Tajik
language (Бемории_Саратони). Surgeon and Rasht
District Medical College lecturer Dehoti Zoirov
commented, “Although we can find sufficient
printed materials and abundant online resources on
medicine in Russian…most Tajik students face a
language barrier in understanding these resources.”
Zoirov added that his students also
lacked the ICT skills to use online resources. These
two challenges led Zoirov and his colleagues to
translate teaching materials from Russian into Tajik
and publish them on a Wiki page. With this resource
as a model, physician Sobirjon Mirzoev says
is now able to encourage his students to contribute
to the development of other Wiki pages in the Tajik
language (http://iatpnews.typepad.com/
iatp/2009/05/tajikistan-physicians-create-locallanguage-online-wiki-resource.html).
RSS feeds: These tools allow beneficiaries working
on specific issues to notify interested parties about
the latest content and updates to their websites,
without having to rely passively on others visiting
their sites. Interactive website editors allow those
without programming knowledge to maintain dynamic,
appealing and useful sites. As a result of
IATP activities, 98 organizations were trained to
use RSS over the last two years.
For example, in autumn 2007 and spring 2008 IATP
centers in Belarus hosted the seminar “Online Media”
for local residents, as well as for representatives
of regional and national mass media outlets.
The seminar introduced IATP users to a wide variety
of newspapers, magazines, and other media
sources on the internet and introduced RSS concepts
for subscribing to these information flows.
Within the framework of the seminars, IATP also
introduced user to Belarusian internet publications,
providing them a wider opportunity to receive alternative
local and national information and to
manage new technologies that allow readers to become
active participants of news making process. 94
Mobile technology: IATP also began exploring the
applications of a technology already in the pockets
of the majority of Eurasians—mobile phones. The
possibilities for using mobile technology as a tool to
inform and connect are growing by the day. In
2009, IATP introduced the tool to a Ukranian NGO
working on the social issue HIV/AIDS. IATP and the
NGO Doroga Zhyttya (Road of Life) in Dnipropetrovsk,
Ukraine, spearheaded a pilot project in
March 2009 to help 20 patients better adhere to
their tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS treatment regimens.
This progress not only benefits the individuals
involved, but also contributes to the broader
state of public health. Doroga Zhyttya, part of the
USAID-partnered All-Ukrainian Network of People
93 For more information, see IATP Interim M&E Report, June 2007 – December 2008
94 For more information, see IATP Interim M&E Report, June 2007 – December 2008
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