CAOSA is a leading and influential voice that advocates for effective communication in South Africa. Through ICTs we provide leadership & Access to Knowledge Economy
“Nka karolo – Thatha Iqhaza Participate report lack of network coverage, signal distribution and radio coverage in your respective community”.
The theme or slogan, Nka karolo (Sotho word) or Thatha iqhaza (Zulu word) briefly means in English: ‘communal participation’.
This is a summary of our response to the evident digital divide which mainly prevails in rural areas and pushes the people into further disadvantage. A need to first narrow, then to close the ICT gap in these disadvantaged areas, both, in skills and technology, is felt. Our organisation identified this gap through various forms of engagement and took it upon itself to work in collaboration with service provider, government and other community stakeholder to address the problem, its cause and effects and thereafter provide a solution where possible. Public participation is only one of the tools we would apply towards this cause.
We would like to be identified with this slogan as the brand and a vehicle towards achieving our organisational objective with regard to mending digital divide and skewed network coverage including its distribution to a wider populace in and around South Africa and region as we are now a digital community. Through public participation workshops and programme it is believed many digital users and consumers would benefit and new forms of interaction would be established and this fits squarely with government ICT department objective of digital migration; from analogue to digital 2020 slogan.
The process so far is at its early stage. Engagements have been carried for some time with various stakeholders, state actors and non-government sector involved. What is needed for now is seed funding as to kick-start the process, first at small scale and escalates as the process develops. A simulation process has been developed on how this project will be carried out, and what remains to be done is to put it into practice, monitor - evaluate and duplicate the proceeds of good practice and follow a learning curve as we move from one province to another.
VISION
In line with government digital inclusion policies, our vision is to see South Africa becoming an active partner in the digital cyber-village, establishment of all forms of entrepreneurship, government national-regional policy realisation with civil society mutually benefiting from the proceeds of the course.
The expectation from the process
- Look at ways to improving the use of digital as educational tool (e-learning for schools, etc.)
- To develop an Informative tool (as one of the persuasive text for advertisement, announcements and emergency alert)
- Improving community police forum activism (whistle blower, crime reporting, etc.), fighting Cyber Crime,
- Production of a report that can be used as a model for digital improvement with regard to access, utility and duplication at cheaper rate for more users (those who cannot afford to buy gadget or tools.
BACKGROUND
Our organisation Communication Access Organisation of South Africa (referred to as CAOSA) is one of the civil society organisation operating nationally, in partnership with chapter 9 institutions, as the mouthpiece of civil society.
CAOSA was established in June 2009 and formerly registered as a non-profit company in July 21, 2014. The reason for our establishment was solely to address the digital divide in SA, in conjunction with the human rights organisation lobby for uneven access to digital divide, as part of human right entitlement in a global age of information, rural infrastructure development and benefiting from digital free zone spaces at regional, international level.
It can be argued that this process could not be achieved without a public participatory process being carried out, therefore we had informal random consultations processes with various communities and organisations throughout the country and we developed a baseline study, a tool towards Community needs identification, need analysis and implementation.
Through ICTs for Development and relative pure service; We are selling credibility and integrity as is stipulated and articulated in Good Governance Literature, especially as championed by Dr Mervin King.
Our role is to help both, private and public sectors as there is a literature gap and to set standards of Good Governance.
We subscribe to The King I, II, III and IV Code of Good Governance.
