In rural areas women, especially young girls, unlike their more privileged counterparts in cities, face tremendous hurdles in terms of having access to education, information and livelihood. Only a few determined ones with strong parental support – provided the parents are rich enough to afford them – make it to school and college. Of these, again only a select few, the luckiest ones, can take up jobs or become self-employed and become economically self-reliant.
 
Part of the problem can be attributed to the traditional rural mindset towards gender differentiation but much of it could be attributed to the lack of proper infrastructure facilities and means of access in rural areas, that deny the deserving the opportunity to education, information and livelihood – the three most potent tools of empowerment, especially women empowerment.
 
Today, in the age of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), age-old rural mindsets that have restricted women behind the four walls of their homes have begun to crumble. The sustained efforts of the government and civil society organisations have led to a strong urge among women to become literate, get educated and participate in the decision-making processes. Technology is not only giving women a chance to be at par with men in all spheres of life, it is also opening up windows for women to take a leap in the skies and become world leaders. The biggest advantage of technology is that it gives everybody a chance to replicate a successful model in multiple locations, in literally zero time. This is the reason that not one or two but hundreds of Kalpana Chawlas and Sunita Williams are being born every second in the remotest areas of the world. TARAhaat, the pioneer ICT-based Indian social enterprise is all for solving the most complex of problems facing women – education, information and livelihood, using technology as a powerful partner.

Illiteracy is perhaps the biggest challenge in front of the fast growing Indian economy, whose fruits have been restricted to urban India primarily because of illiteracy. While the economy continues to grow at around 9%, millions of Indians, especially women, are just not in a position to participate in this growth process and share the benefits simply because they are illiterate. The percentage of female literacy in the country is 54.16%. Some of the numerous reasons behind the alarming women literacy rates especially in states like Bihar and Jharkhand are:
· Gender-based inequality
· Social discrimination and economic exploitation
· Occupation of girl child in domestic chores
· Low enrolment of girls in schools
· Low retention rate and high dropout rate

TARAhaat’s realisation of this huge problem of illiteracy and all these individual reasons led to the genesis of a revolutionary product that has now changed the lives of more than 40,000 women – TARA Akshar.
 
TARA Akshar is a computer-based functional literacy programme that teaches completely illiterate people to learn to read and write Hindi (Devanagari) in just 30 days. The equipment is simple: one Laptop, a couple of books and a facilitator. The results have been phenomenal. The programme, based on a combination of memory techniques, engages the learners mentally with the use of video gaming patterns. The drop out rate has been les than 20%, an astonishingly low figure when compared to any other scheme of this nature. Thousands of self-written letters by these erstwhile illiterates thanking TARA Akshar stand testimony to this revolutionary product that has infinite potential. TARA Akshar’s success is a big proof of how human networks — TARAhaat, Development Alternatives (DA), Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) Programme and thousands of Self Help Groups (SHGs) – and technology can work together to eradicate the toughest of problems facing mankind, in a remarkably short time.
 
Another hurdle that women face in their fight against gender equality is access to information. However strong the will and desire to stand up to the world, everything goes down the drain if not supported by windows to the world of knowledge. A large number of women in rural India still depend on agriculture for their meals. Since it is practically impossible for each one of them to keep apace with the latest technologies and best practices being followed all over the world, setting-up of an easily accessible agri-advisory service means a high-value addition in their day-to-day work. TARAhaat, with One World South Asia, initiated the Lifelines India project specifically in the drought-hit areas of Bundelkhand. TARAhaat’s volunteers are within easy in the region with a mobile phone and a farmer can pose any query using the same. Within 24 hours, the farmer is provided expert advice on his question. More than 36,000 farmer queries have been answered in the past 10 months of the pilot’s roll out.

Information is obviously not restricted to the field of agriculture. Areas like career counseling, health, Right to Information, Government policies, self-employment are equally important for women if not more in today’s changing times. How can technology provide a platform to disseminate information to these areas in the downtrodden areas?

DA and ISRO joined hands to find a solution to this huge impact problem. ISRO’s Village Resource Centres (VRCs) at DA locations have been running for a year now with 6 days of high-quality programme transmission from Delhi. Subject matter experts from DA’s Head Quarters provide information on all these above stated areas to people in the most remote of villages.

The most wonderful aspect of today’s times is the desire among girls to think big. They want to learn about computers, and set up enterprises of their own. While Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential programme offered a chance to thousands of girls to learn about computers in TARAhaat’s centres, TARAhaat’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) is training a number of women to become self-employed. In most of the TARAhaat’s centres, the number of girls learning computer skills easily outnumbers the boys. Most of these students have never seen a computer in their lives before. Many computer graduates of TARAhaat have, in fact, been absorbed by TARAhaat as trainers/counselors/managers. Also, numerous women are running successful enterprises after being trained in EDP and a lot more are running TARAhaat’s centres in different rural locations. The spirit of entrepreneurship among women has been supported and facilitated by TARAhaat in all its endeavours along with the strong support of technology.
 
In a unique initiative, TARAhaat, in association with Oxfam (India) Trust is about to pilot a combination of TARA Akshar and EDP on a group of 100 women. These women will first be made literate and then will be trained and guided to set up their own enterprises. This innovative pilot, if successful, will open doors to a plethora of opportunities especially for the thousands of SHGs that can become literate and financially self sustainable.

These are exciting times. Women are standing up for their rights. Interesting ICT-based products and services are helping them to do so. The day is not far when every single woman of this country will not only just be literate and start participating in the decision-making processes in her family and community, but also start contributing to the economic progress of the country.
 
Every woman has the potential to become a Kalpana Chawla or a Sunita Williams. Give wings to their dreams; Information and Communication Technologies will help them achieve their aspirations. q           

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