First Byte

" Where is the mouse? " 3.5 year old Aryan promptly showed me his Mickey Mouse school bag, while his mother Janki Khatri, pointed to the correct device on the computer table in front of her. Janki had walked in the previous day to enroll herself for the computer orientation course - Computer First Byte - at VIDYA Computer Learning and Resource Centre (CLRC). She had not been anywhere near a computer before this and was quite jittery about the 10 day course. Nonetheless, she came everyday alongwith her son whom she picked from school right before starting her session. When I met her on the last and tenth day of the course, she proudly showed me her folder containing a Notepad file 'Myself.txt', a desgin in MS-Paint, her MS-Word resume in 'Janki.doc', and a sample marksheet in Excel for the marks scored by 5 students in 5 subjects complete with average, aggregate, minimum and maximum scores! All this within 10 days, I was as proud of Janki and the computer centre at VIDYA, as she was of herself. The volunteers who are ex-VIDYA students of the NSVK and who underwent a VIDYA and BG sponsored course at Jetking were indispensable in making this magic happen.


The participants ranged from 10-year old Vanshika, who would eagerly walk in 10 minutes earlier than the scheduled time to 50-year old Mrs. Manju Pandey who needed a lot of convincing to join the course along with her daughter. "Ab umar nahi rahi seekhne ki" was what she had said when I asked her to give it a try and I countered it saying "Seekhne ki koi umar nahi hoti". With shaking hands when she first tried to control the mouse she almost gave up, but I reassured her that those hands had handled much bigger responsibilities of life than a mere computer mouse. And thus she took off. Soon she was drawing a collage of colourful circles in MS-Paint.

The impact of a ICT4D - Information and Computer Technology for Development - is showcased in these examples of Janki and Manju. Not only the individual's knowledge, technological advancement and self-confidence receive a terrific boost, but it also breaks barriers paving way for a confident and daring exploration of the unknown.

Manvi Singh
VIDYA Volunteer