Sara Mora Tormo

Age: 49 years old
Position at Telecentre: Telecentre Operator
Years in Service (at current telecentre): 8 years
Years in Service (at current position): 8 years

Telecentre/Employer Information

Name of Telecentre: Telecentro Gavarda
City: Gavarda (Valencia)
Country: Spain
Region: Europe
Name of Nominating Individual/Entity: Fundación Esplai

Background:

Sara works for the City of Gavarda (Valencia, Spain). She is the librarian and takes care of cataloging, documenting and archiving the data files, but she is also the facilitator and manager of the telecentre. Sara began to work as facilitator in 2003, when the City of Gavarda made an agreement with the Valencian County Council (in March 2003 the Ministry of Agriculture, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces and Red.es, signed a cooperation agreement for the implementation of the Rural Internet program).

The program was launched with the main objective of bringing new technologies to rural citizens and proceeded to install some free public access points in rural entities. It also began to develop, through the Ministry of Agriculture, some software tools for the primary industry. Additionally, the councils and Autonomous Communities, started to co-finance the activities of the program and committe to enrich the life of the telecentres through facilitation and training. The Government of Valencia then created a Public Access Point Network for all citizens of the Valencian Community, paying special attention to rural or isolated areas as those had greater difficulty in accessing the Knowledge & Information Society.

In total, the telecentre has 9 computers with free Internet access for citizens. As the computers were being located in the Library, Sara began to take charge of their maintance and of the facilitation of the telecentre. The facilitator showed a big interest in this new role and became a driving force through training, initiatives, materials, activities, etc .... and through ongoing meetings she had with the council.

Today, the facilitation of the Telecentre and all what it entails (social and technical skills, promoting the use of the Internet among the citizens and among the surrounding area, computing and Internet courses, electronic administration ... etc.) is the main focus of her tasks leaving her performance as a librarian as a second option.

Contribution to Digital Literacy and Community Development:

Sara explains that the beginnings were difficult. The days passed and the telecentre had to function as it was. With the support of representatives of the City, she put her hands at the job and started to talk with the local associations. First with the housewives, going from door to door to ask if they would like to make an informal gathering, nothing specialized, and about items they would be more interested in (although Sarah already prepared a list of issues that she believed it would interest them, and would encourage them to talk).

Sara won the assistance of a group of women: "With the coffee thermos under our arms and a cartan of milk, we started meeting." The first day we were about 7 or 8 people, the second gathering we were about 10 or 12 people and this went on until we needed to bring ever more chairs. They kept chatting a while and at the end Sara always succeeded the activity in the Telecenter Computer Room to make them see that all they were talking about also could be found on the Internet.

The coffee-gathering continued to be a successful (although each time Sara needs a week to prepare the topic). The word about the gatherings had spread among the village and Sara also proposed to the elderly to attend and participate. And so began attending: women, seniors, retirees, young, unemployed people ...

When we interviewed her for the nomination Sara said: "Right now I'm in the computer room of the library, it’s 20.30h Friday and I am in the middle of an Internet course, one of the two courses we are teaching. I am attending people between 30 and 60 years, I'm looking at their faces and although there are two persons per computer, they were at their jobs the whole day and should go home to have dinner, but they’re still here... already for more than two hours in front of the screen with thankful, happy faces, laughing a lot... You should realize that it is a basic Internet course, they had no idea about what they were going to do, they didn’t even know how to turn on the computer, and now they all have their own folder, an email adress, some pictures, participating in communication forums and they finally found out about GOOGLE, which really revolutionized them and they are looking for whatever comes to their minds. All this is very rewarding for me. "

Her experience with older people is a big success: "a man of 70 years came to the Telecentre and wanted to know the consequences of the dialysis he was under, I printed him almost a book, he was so impressed by it and couldn’t believe that “a machine” would give him more documentation than his doctor."

Besides helping people to find information and to do all kinds of telematic procedures for the State administration, Sara is teaching two courses: an Internet course for basic user and another one for intermediate users (supported by the Government of Valencian). She also conducts courses on job search, etc.. using materials of the Red Conecta network. The number of people that already visited the Telecentre is hardly countable, they either come to perform a procedure, or to take a computing course or to surf the Internet...

Leadership, Partnership and Resource Mobilisation:

Sara's job is characterized, in addition to the above, by a clear objective to achieve self-sufficiency and economic sustainability for the telecentre and for the project, through a mixture of formulas:

Calls for Public Subsidies:

* Provincial Council of Valencia
* City Council of GAVARDA
* Government of Valencia
* Public Entity Red.es

Private: social funding projects of Savings Banks, Foundations, Companies:

* SPREAD Project (for surfers)
* Fundación Telefónica, as they are widely involved in the societies in which they are present.
* AVANZA plan
* PATER (www.pater.es), the Pater is managed by six entities under the tutelage of SERVEF: Commonwealth of the Ribera Alta, Commonwealth of the Ribera Baja, CCOO, UGT and Valencian Business Confederation (CEV), within which are represented FEDALCICA and Alzira Business Association (La Ribera Europe, European Resources services for the district).
* Manra (www.manra.org) the Commonwealth of the Ribera Alta is a local entity that includes all the municipalities of the Ribera Alta. It consists of 35 municipalities and groups a population of 221,545 inhabitants. The Commonwealth manages different services of interest for its member municipalities.

Other ways of financing and networking the Telecentre:

* www.plataformavoluntariado.es
* Microsoft: Microsoft's vision
* Project "Dipu Dreams" Valencia Province Wifi
* http://www.valenciaterraimar.org
* Provincial Tourism, objectives of the Board: to encourage the provincial tourism development, to coordinate with other public authorities and to do promotional work.