Can Social Networking Aleviate Poverty?

Image 8-550-1 Photo © David Sanger

Laos, Vientiane , Young girls on the bank of the Mekong

Taking off from this site and article by Frederick Noronha

Slumdog Millionaire was inspired by an experiment in a Delhi slum: Young children taught themselves to use computers.

Children know, intuitively, what they need to survive and grow.

In fact, people everywhere know what they need to survive and grow. We need to make friends and listen. So social networking may have a prominent place, not just for fund raising, but for making sure that solutions meet problems on the ground.

Indian electrical engineer Mohit Garg highlights these Web 2.0:

• Kiva (which lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the ‘developing’ world to get out of poverty);
• MicroPlace (investing in people’s livelihoods, not charity);
• RangDe.org (where borrowers met social investors);
• dhanaX (social lending); and
  
• Drishteehaat (fair trade).

AZUR Development uses Web 2.0 tools — such as a blog and a photosharing site — for its work for empowerment of indigenous women and their families in Congo.

Relative to information and communications technology in general, my friend Marco Figueiredo says of his work in rural communities of Brazil, “The best news comes from our telecenters. One of our volunteers was admitted in a highly competitive federal university for a degree in Information Systems, and he studied for the test using distance learning in the telecenter. It’s a first in the history of the community. Six women are graduating this year in college through distance learning in the telecenter. every saturday they go to the nearby city to take live classes…. one of the telecenters is making enough money to pay one employee’s salary.”

Next: Jhai Foundation’s work in Laos, Vietnam, India, and Africa.