September 28, 2005
Bangladesh mobile help-line for women tops gender and ICT awards
Pallitathya, an innovative Mobile Help-Line programme via cell phones for underprivileged women in rural Bangladesh beat 39 other entries from all over the Asia-Pacific to win this year's Gender and Information & Communication Technology (GICT) Awards. [via Asian Age via Information for Development]
The Help-Line deployed women in the community as "Mobile Operator Ladies" who move from door-to-door to enable other women -- mostly housewives -- to ask questions related to livelihood, agriculture, health, and legal rights via a mobile phone, while Help-Desk operators respond to the women's queries with the use of a database-driven software application and the internet.
With women's economic empowerment as its centrepiece, the Pallitathya Help-Line Centre directly addressed the community's information needs while keeping the beneficiaries' anonymity intact. As mobile operator ladies, women were consciously given a crucial role as "infomediaries," increasing their self-worth, their potential to earn, and their knowledge about various issues."
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