Infomediary ripple

It all started with a curious mind. One day of deep thinking: Do the farmers benefit from our ICT initiatives? That was in 2009. That was when I barely had knowledge on doing extensive research. All I had was that big question. With my colleagues and college academic adviser, we went out to do a survey “Assessment of e-readiness of the five top rice-producing provinces of the Philippines”.

We learned a lot from the survey. Farmers who underwent ICT training, but were hardly able to apply what they learned. The reasons were very simple: they did not have computer units in their household, most were computer illiterate and had difficulty understanding the English text, which is the dominant text in the Internet. From that survey we learned that farmers wanted their children to teach them how to use the computer—if it could be made possible. That was the birth of the infomediary concept in our work.

But then, it did not take off as expected. The campaign to mobilise the youth as infomediaries started in 2012 in Aurora province. We are now in the middle of our campaign in Aurora. We are blessed that our proposal has been approved for funding by the DA’s Regional Field Unit in Central Mindanao. So here we are replicating the campaign in Southern Philippines! We are in Apolinario S Bernardo Memorial High School in Tacurong City. The same breath of fresh air, positive energy and enthusiasm, but different social context. This will be very exciting.