"We, women, were traditionally denied a voice in decision-making processes, until now. Becoming a literate has ensured that our voices are heard at all levels." – says Sunita Devi, a neo-literate from Mathethu village in Bhadohi district of Uttar Pradesh.

Illiteracy and lack of information can adversely affect human rights. Women do not get access even to basic information due to their inability to read and write. In rural areas, traditional social and economic barriers play a primary role in keeping them illiterate. As women often cannot do even simple mathematical calculations they are often exploited and do not receive their proper wages. Government programmes have not been able to break the barriers built over centuries. Additionally, absence of political will to ensure an effective implementation of welfare programmes, insufficient financial resources, lack of attention to women’s specific learning needs, poor quality of teaching, time-bound deadlines and absence of commitment to overcome gender disparities have acted as stumbling blocks.

Illiteracy is perhaps, the biggest challenge facing the growing Indian economy. Even though the economy continues to grow fairly fast, millions of Indians, especially women, are just not in a position to participate in this growth process and share its benefits because they are illiterate.

This has not only resulted in rural women being confined exclusively to their homes but has also prevented them from equipping themselves with proper skills necessary for participation in the economic activities of their villages.

The modern age with its Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) based initiatives can solve the severe problems facing the world like poverty, climate change, health hazards, etc. There is a growing recognition of the fact that ICT is a powerful tool that can make development effective on a large scale for the poor. As a result, an increasing number of development organisations across the world have started using ICT to promote development, increase citizen participation and reduce poverty. But the greatest challenge facing practitioners, researchers, governments and development agencies across the world is to identify ways and means through which access to ICT can be ensured to the five billion people who are still outside the reach of ICT and cannot afford private access to these technologies.

Development Alternatives (DA) has always believed that in order to ensure sustainable absorption of technology by the society, it is just as important to develop the relevant content of products and services that have the potential to address issues of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment in a meaningful manner and additionally focus on women’s problems.

In its approach towards a viable and scale product to address the problem of women’s literacy, DA developed its flagship programme entitled ‘TARA Akshar+’. The programme has been designed in such a way that it fits into the specific needs and requirements of the people, especially of the women community. More than 80,000 women have already benefited from this programme.

In recent times a delivery model has been developed that enables DA to considerably up-scale the delivery of TARA Akshar, the literacy module. Using this delivery model, DA through its various projects and programmes, has been successful in making more than 80,000 women literate from the poorest districts of the five Hindi speaking States of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi NCR.

The delivery model of computer literacy software involves local instructors teaching the course over a period of 56 days to groups consisting of ten learners. The instructors are in turn trained by executive trainers during a three week training programme.

During delivery, major emphasis is on maximum participation of women from the disadvantaged sections of the community. Fortunately, field implementation since 2007 has indicated that this can be ensured by identifying those locations where women Self Help Groups (SHG) /CIG members are known to have a strong desire to become functionally literate.

This module for SHG members has allowed DA to both deepen and widen the reach of ICT to groups of illiterate or semi-literate SHG members which were hitherto untouched by the fruits of ICT. The programme has also widened its reach with the involvement of the local implementing CSOs as partner organisations in the implementation of the programme. Under the CSO model, the TARA Akshar+ programme follows a framework that is bound to be useful for other developmental programmes of a similar nature.

In the last seven years, thousands of women in the north Indian states have been empowered through the TARA Akshar programme followed by an increased participation of women in SHGs, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) and various livelihood generating activities.

However, a sizeable number of women are still functionally illiterate which makes it difficult for them to participate in the local governance. On the other hand, if functionally literate, women’s participation in CBO and PRI activities in a much more effective and sustainable manner is inevitable. Last, but not the least, a functionally literate woman is much better equipped to take charge of her and her family members’ life. The need for an ICT based literacy program, especially directed at women SHG members, has been felt by DA’s many partners. q