Luisa Román Jiménez

Age: 32 years old
Position at Telecentre: Telecentre Operator
Years in Service (at current telecentre): 7 years
Years in Service (at current position): 7 years

Telecentre/Employer Information

Name of Telecentre: Centro Guadalinfo Huéscar
City: Huéscar (Granada)
Country: Spain
Region: Europe
Name of Nominating Individual/Entity: Consorcio Fernando de los Río

Background:

Back in October 2004 I was working but wanted to improve and through the employment office INEM, I conducted an interview and became a part of the Guadalinfo network.

From the very first moment since I started my job I began to mobilize and reach the most disadvantaged people, both in terms of technology as on a social and cultural level. I mobilized various groups such as women, the unemployed, employers, working class people, old people, immigrants, Gypsies and people with disabilities.

I made them understand that the use of new technologies is very important for their daily lives and I thus began to organize different workshops and trainings in the use of those technological tools that most could be applied to their lives. I showed to each one of those who have passed through the center (today I have recorded in my database 4923 people, for population of 8000) how technology could be useful for them, and I managed to adapt the life of the citizens by making ICT tools part of their lives.

Contribution to Digital Literacy and Community Development:

When I started working at the telecentre, 90% of the people of my village was digitally illiterate. But after I made them see the benefits of using new technologies and stimulated them to become more digital literates, I started to develop my own training courses in the use of technological tools for our population. 

In this way I started to organize basic training for the telecentre users, and little by little I went teaching them the countless opportunities and benefits of using technology tools.

When the first group was already trained, the rest of the population started to become aware, as they could see the first results of how the people that were now using new technologies had improved the quality of their lives. So suddenly there was a waiting list of more than 1000 people that wanted to become users of the telecentre.

Little by little I have been motivating and training all these people and not only these people but most of the population. The users found out that the use of technological tools can be applied into any environment and lifestyle. They saw that in subtle way the benefits were easily obtained, and that the use of those tools could facilitate any personal or business project and could improve the potential for achieving and implementing their projects.

To make them understand the usefulness of technological tools we did not only organize computer workshops, but also conducted workshops on cooking, gardening, hairdressing, etc. .... always applying new technologies to each and every one of the workshops so that people would see its advantages. Every year I made ​​an average of 400 activities of which the major part work workshops to motivate, train or guidance the users according to their needs. To see examples visit our blog activity in http://guadahuescar.blogspot.com

For the citizens of Huéscar the Guadalinfo telecentre became a meeting place for social, cultural, professional and educational for all kinds of communities and groups. We also organize lots of solidarity campaign and charity events, always through the use of new technologies.

The centre is directed towards all people, not only towards those who want to learn about computers and Internet but also towards all who need advice on how to carry out their projects, towards those who have an idea and don’t know how to develop it, and towards those who need support and encouragement for their creativity in improving their professional, social or cultural project.

The telecentre has become the image of our town, the place where all citizens go whatever might be their needs or values.

I feel I am a woman that is very capable to be in the center and advise, stimulate and make users realize their own projects through the help of the telecentre facilitator. Even those who feel they have lost all options and don’t know where to grap their lives again come to the telecentre and then feel energized to choose their path again and make plans for the future.

Leadership, Partnership and Resource Mobilisation:

My leadership has been achieved mainly by listening to people’s concerns and by generating dynamic workshops that meet the objectives of the telecentre but at the same time also met the needs of users. Through creativity and talent we have created numerous projects that echoed people’s happiness in terms of employment  and of social, professional, educational and cultural values.

I have been involved with each of the groups studying their needs and seeing its potential, so through my projects I have managed to transform the land making it more active, alert and reach your goals. I changed the way of thinking on citizenship and the telecentre has become a meeting place for all.

There have been several projects and activities such as:

• Networking companies, that created an online presence for the entrepreneurs and made them use e-commerce that boosted the economy of the population
• Workshops on making your cv and looking for a job, through which the unemployed managed to find a job and were trained to achieve their career goals
• TurisHuescar, a project to promote the tourism in our village, which became a tourist reference as it showed our customs, traditions, places and landscapes through the network
• School parents ICT 2.0, a project destinated at parents of school children in which parents learned about both the risks and benefits of having their children using internet and through which we conducted several knowledge sharing workshops between parents and children
• Technological gypsies, that succeeded including new technologies into the daily lives of this community
• Pensioredate, that succeeded in making older people mastering new technologies and using them into their daily lives
• Discaptic, social innovation and technological learning for people with disabilities, to make them use the available assisted technology tools and the rest of the digital environment
• My hands against gender violence, in which users show their solidarity against violence against women through internet, while scanning their own hand
• Guadalinfo in Action, that organizes charity events for entities and nonprofit organizations like the Spanish Association Against Cancer.
• Operation Zarzuela, that motivated people with common concerns in recovering cultural traditions and customs of the village

These are just some of the projects that are being carried out, for which we work day after day while we can see all our working hours of thinking and activity rewarded in a motivated public that uses these technologies for their different projects

For more information, videos and photo albums of all activities that we perform every day, please visit http://guadahuescar.blogspot.com