By Nodo TAU ROSARIO, Argentina,
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For a second year in a row, the neighbours of the western area of the city are participating in computing workshops. Within the framework of this initiative that arises from the participatory budget, 800 people were trained last year and the objective is to reach over 1500 neighbours this year. The municipal government adopts an approach “from the perspective of human rights, popular participation and a greater democratization of society.” The Nodo Tau civil association [APC member] was once again called on to train the trainers from the perspective of popular education.
The individuals that reside in the western district of our city, one of the poorest of Rosario, voted to carry out the computing workshops using a participatory budget mechanism that the local government is supporting, with the following arguments: “for greater integration into the work market, to communicate with distant relatives, to not be left out of the future”. However, this is not news. The news is that the experience is being replicated this year and that in this new edition, the actors involved have a privilege: hindsight and the opportunity to evaluate prior experience.
Evaluating the experience
“The evaluation we are doing of the training that was carried out last year is highly positive” specifies Susana Bartolomé, director of the municipal district. In 2005, 115 workshops were held in the district and four in the neighbourhoods where 1400 people had signed up, attended, and of which 800 completed the curriculum. The municipal administration has also analysed the population that attended the workshops. “73% were women and 63% were young people between the age of 14 and 30. We reflected on this, to make sure we were teaching and working with certain issues that pertain to the rights of young people and women,” notes Susana. This also helps us determine what is still on the ‘to do’ list, which is “the goal of offering free software training. We encountered certain obstacles that are not a limitation factor, but that we were unable to resolve last year. This year we have worked more intensely with the group of trainers in order to meet this objective,” emphasizes the centre representative.
On this occasion there will be eight training centres and the district will purchase fifteen more systems for the training. The proposal includes three course levels: children, beginner –which is the same proposal as this past year- and an advanced level. All the courses are free. The objective is to include more neighbours. “We are thinking of reaching between 1500 and 1800 people,” forecasted Susana Bartolomé. “The people that attend are also offered all the materials needed for the training. The material was created by Nodo Tau, who also took on the training of trainers so that we can try to reach each of the training centres with the same working methods,” commented the district director.
Pedagogy for transformation
Carolina Fernández, teaching coordinator at Nodo Tau, also evaluates the experience “as a result of reflecting on last year’s training experience with the educators. Not only did we provide theoretical and technical knowledge, but we also generated a space to practice. The educators taught their peers pre-established content. They could plan and deliver the classes. Although there was resistance or inhibition to the idea of teaching one’s peers in the beginning, we say that this was the kick-off to taking on this role. Not only did we perceive the tools, but a space where these tools could be considered was also generated.” Carolina also highlighted the possibility of monitoring the work of the coordinators as progress for this year. This would consist of meetings every to weeks to reflect on its daily use.
Since the beginning of the organisation, Nodo Tau’s work has been done from the perspective developed by Paulo Freire “Popular education not only educates, but organizes and transforms and is key to our work of trying to contribute to social transformation. Popular education is a key tool for that change,” specifies Carolina, as she argues in favour of pedagogical methodology. The working process is more difficult from this perspective, especially in social contexts in which other ways of understanding teaching-learning processes and the manner in which this is implemented also affects the training trainers receive. Carolina is explicit with regards to these difficulties as well as the reasons behind that methodological choice. “The educators have been trained in traditional education like all of us. To all of a sudden have to provide content or generate different processes from other perspectives generates resistance. This is the same with the students. However, we continue to bet on this method because we are not trying to teach computing so they simply learn to use a word processor, but so they also understand what it is for, why it has historically been monopolised by groups in power and why we have not been able to take ownership of this tool, or technology in general that’s usually quite inaccessible to the masses, as a people. This allows us to have a critical vision of technology. We do not think that technology is here to save us and resolve all the problems we have, but rather, depending on the use that we make of it, it can help to improve our life”.
The municipal government also prioritises taking a more complex approach in the perception of emerging information and communication technologies. It is precisely due to this that they have chosen a social organisation to carry out this training, which includes a critical view. Susana Bartolomé defines it as follows: “With these courses the municipal government is playing a very important role. On the one hand, it acts as a vehicle for the needs presented by neighbours in the participatory budget. Yet, simultaneous, we perceive the training in computing as a tool that obviously seeks to diminish the social divide that exists regarding knowledge on behalf of very marginalised sectors of the community. It is also an excuse to touch upon the issue of human rights, popular education and the need for the greater democratisation of society with an important portion of the population. It is in this sense that we associate with organisations that promote access to emerging technologies among popular sectors.
Training of trainers
Roberto Marcelino will be the coordinator of the computing workshops in the western district [of the Argentinean city of Rosario] for the second year in a row. “This training, in my view, reinforces what was seen last year, not so much in the technical sense, but rather pedagogically speaking. The idea is to make it more participatory for people. It is not a matter of one always talking about what one knows, but rather letting the groups participate, express their knowledge while integrating it to what is being taught about computing.” Roberto finds increasingly advanced content in this year’s proposal, but is also identifying ways of simplifying it to make it more understandable. In reference to 2005, he emphasised that there was a certain drop out rate but that “in general there are more people interested than there are drop outs. One tries to provide them incentives, to motivate them to continue. We work in groups of ten to fifteen people. There are two trainers and every meeting is an hour and a half long, every day of the week, during four months”, he specifies. This year Roberto hopes to “improve what was done last year and try to transmit more advanced knowledge to people so they understand and become excited about it”.
For Cristian Torres this is the first time he participates in the project. He had non-formal educational experiences as a result of his work as an operator at Aire Libre, a community radio in the west of Rosario. “We have offered small workshops at the radio, be it to programme music tracks, use computer programmes, or update colleagues the technical operations. But it was always informal. Internally, I felt that part was lacking”. Cristian highlights the pedagogical methodology “without leaving aside the technical aspect,” he clarifies. “We clarified the doubts as they arose. That gave us a certain security”. For Cristian, “how to organise a class, the objectives, methods used… are things that I did without realising that I was doing them. It was like clarifying everything, to realise what I had already lived without knowing it. It was like naming what I had done before”. Paulo Freire could not have offered a better explanation of one of the central points of popular education: to recuperate one’s own knowledge.
As a temporary replacement, Oscar Albiaque, participated to some training sessions last year. “I liked the little that I saw and all the things that the people who had participated the whole year told me and I thought it was very interesting”. Oscar is a computing academic instructor, especially trained in non-formal education. “My training has a lot in common with what is being done at Nodo, free from rigid institutional frameworks and open to new experiences in order to further the teaching of computing. Now I am also faced with this new complement for me, which is a social and political approach to computing,” he declares. “This is new for me. It isn’t specifically pedagogical, rather intentional.” This political view also puts into effect different points of view that cause disagreement. He cites free software, as an example, which was a broadly debated issue during the workshop.
Regarding their expectations for the course, Oscar notes “the responsibility to meet people’s expectations. It is a useful, interesting tool, that is going to bring them closer to yet another possibility, but taking the course does not mean that they are going to get a job, or a good job that they like. Maybe people come with great expectations and not letting them down is going to be complicated. The best I can do is make sure they feel gratified when they leave, that they take the best information possible with them, both technically and humanly too. This is the non-computing complement, the social issue, the community”.
Working with the state
The work carried out in association with the state is a discussion that is currently debated by different social organisations, especially after the social crises that arose as a result of acute neoliberal processes that ran away from and reduced the role of the state. In the analysis of this relationship between actors, Danilo Lujambio from Nodo Tau, highlights that “ a local development organisation, like us, has the possibility of seeing that its actions have greater impact, massive impact, which is the total patrimony of the state. Regardless of how big it might be, a local development organisation never has the degree of impact in the field that the state might have.” Once involved in the specific work, Danilo highlights that “the organisations should adapt their working methods to the scope of the policy. Specific activities can be elaborated in a more dedicated manner that pays more attention to the details of their implementation. However, when the impact is broader, there are things that one knows are not going to be a perfect ten, rather a seven. Nevertheless, there is a balance that has to do with the scope of the task that is being carried out. This is a lesson to be learnt by organisations,” he notes.
Another “delicate” axis in this discussion is the relationship between the organisations and the state. “It is delicate because the state has taken steps back and there is space left unoccupied. The advances made by the organisations have had been costly for both parties. In the case of organisations, there is a great deal of qualified staff working on projects in practically unsustainable conditions. The state has also suffered the consequences of its retreatist attitude. Currently, many tasks lack technical frameworks, innovative ideas or ideas that are more faithful to the reality in the field. This is an issue that needs to be debated without preconceptions because we can easily evaluate the retreat of the state. However, the second or third class civil servant that is trying to work with you to carry out an activity in the field is also the victim of a state that retreated a decade ago and has become very difficult to mobilise. It is not as if there was a game where if he does not do, I will. In projects of this nature there is the constructive will of both parties,” highlights Danilo.
Repeating the experience is also included in the analysis. “I think it is healthy to be able self-evaluate, to evaluate others and have others evaluate us. Along with the local state we were able to evaluate our processes and they were able to evaluate theirs. This was very educational because it involved making the evaluation process transparent. Hopefully this will go on, become more extended, and hopefully both entities will know how to maintain their identities because it is not easy to work on the borders all the while retaining clear boundaries of one’s identity”.
