PAN ASIA ICT R&D Grants Programme - UTM

Training session in Ifugao
income generation possibilities,
namely through employment and
return to formal education.
The program established low-cost
Computer Livelihood Training Centres
that are sustained by local partners and
offer affordable computer literacy
training for underprivileged Filipino
youth. The training program includes
computer literacy training, life skills
education, entrepreneurship skills
training and employment support.
Of the social workers with whom
the project team work, more than 90
percent were women. In addition, the
gender distribution of the trainees to
date has been very close to 50 percent
male and female. This means both
genders are getting the benefits of
training.
Project Method
The project team established 15 centres
using 250 computers and training 1,500
underprivileged youth every year. The
average implementation cost of a 15computer
centre is kept to roughly
Low Cost IT Centres
$10,000 CAD by leveraging
Canadian equipment donations
(more than 250 computers
donated so far)and the
work of more than 100
volunteers in Canada and
abroad. With monthly
maintenance and operational
cost of $250 CAD, the program
is considered very affordable
for our local partners.
Between 2001 and 2002,
EWB conceptualized and built
the pioneer computer livelihood-training
centre in
Lingayen, Philippines
together with the Technical
Education Skills Development
Agency (TESDA) as the local
partner. The following year
the pilot project was studied
and together with DSWD as
local partner, EWB established
three Centres in the central
Philippines. The PAN Asia ICT Grant
partly funded this expansion. From
the pilot phase of the project, the team
learned lessons that would ensure
improvement of progressive projects.
First, the team found that there is a
continued need for close monitoring to
ensure long-term sustainability. In
addition, the team found that the
approach to measure impact has to be
robust to allow for objective results.
The team also found it important to
appreciate that computer training
alone is not enough and that the
training must include other soft-skills
in order to be beneficial for the youth
taking part in the project. Implementing
the lessons learned from the pilot
phase, in 2004, EWB and the DSWD
launched an integrated training
program for out-of-school youth. The
project was scaled up and an additional
12 Computer Literacy Training
Centres were established across the
Philippines.
This process of capacity transfer is
on going and the DSWD, assisted by
EWB, continues to expand the project
to new communities across the
Philippines. Through close collaboration
between the EWB volunteers and
the DSWD social workers, both parties
benefit from shared expertise. The
DSWD is able to clearly define the
situation of the Filipino youth in their
communities as well as play a key role
in customizing the project model for
their respective communities, while
EWB trains the center staff in the use
of the computers and orients them
Out of school youth from San Jose del Monte
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