Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.95.960903151225.26717A-100000@ccen.uccb.ns.ca> Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 15:14:31 -0300 From: Mike Gurstein <mailto:mgurst@CCEN.UCCB.NS.CA> Subject: Wire Nova Scotia (WiNS) (fwd) To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
This may be of interest in the context of the discussion of community access centers.The Centre I direct, the Centre for Community and Enterprise Networking (C\CEN) at the University College of Cape Breton in Sydney, Nova Scotia in conjunction with the Provincial Department of Education and with funding from the Canadian Department of Industry and four other Federal and Provincial agencies put together a program this summer to hire about 60 students to work throughout rural Nova Scotia linking small businesses, young people and the general public to the Internet through public Internet Access sites. (We called it Wire Nova Scotia--WiNS.)
The program went off extremely well...we trained some 3-4000 people on Internet access, we helped organize a public Internet access program in some 40 or so rural communities around Nova Scotia, several of the students have been offered more permanent work and others have decided to re-orient their work aspirations, a public access/training program is being developed for people with disabilities in the province, a Virtual Centre for Cape Breton Music is being created as we speak...
Most of the students have gone back to their respective schools and we have now negotiated agreements with various agencies (Social Services, Unemployment Insurance, TAGS--the unemployed fisherman's transition program) to allow their "clients" to come in to replace the students as "volunteers".
Through the system of regional co-ordinators and the electronic network set up to manage WiNS we will be providing Internet and community access training to the "volunteers" and we will be providing assistance to the Internet Access sites in taking on and managing the volunteers and programming their sites. We expect to have upwards of 70 "volunteers" in place by the end of September.
All of this is being done with virtually no "new money" in that it is simply re-directing how existing (and committed) expenditures and energies are being directed (welfare payments, student employment schemes, unemployment insurance payments...)
Indications are that some of the sites may look to make these arrangements more permanent, by finding ways of making the sites generate revenues or by re-directing funds which are currently going into such areas as "industrial development/promotion/tourism" (frequently outside of the community) into these channels.
We will be sending our first two International Internet-workers to Angola to support the work of an NGO in Luanda in October...one will be a young unemployed ex-fisherman, using his Government funded computer training for the first time, and the other a University College of Cape Breton Geographic Information System student helping to install a GIS program with the NGO to help in the re-building of Luanda.
Regs
Mike Gurstein
Michael Gurstein,Ph.D. ECBC/NSERC/SSHRC Chair in the Management of Technological Change Associate Professor Organizational Management and Director: Centre for Community and Enterprise Networking (C\CEN) University College of Cape Breton Sydney, NS, Canada B1P 6L2
Tel. 902-563-1369 (O) 902-562-1055 (H) Fax 902-562-0119
EMail mailto:MGurst@sparc.uccb.ns.ca
On Wed, 28 Aug 1996, Neil & Rosemary Davis wrote:
> At 07:49 AM 8/28/96 -0500, Margaret wrote:
>
> >I've really enjoyed your postings this morning, but this one has me puzzled.
> >Could you explain what personal and professional productivity that a good old
> >job represents to a lot of folks will be supplanted with?
>
> I haven't finished "The End of Work" yet, but I know that he
> recommends compensation within the volunteer sector, providing remuneration
> for participation in volunteer activites in one's community. He's a little
> fuzzy on where the money will come from for such compensation, except a
> general tendency to require corporations to share their profits more with
> the general population, instead of with their shareholders. I'll comment
> further when I've finished the book. ( Which, by the way, is overdue and
> cannot be renewed because of as long, long waiting list here in Mississauga,
> ) It's worth reading, as it provides a good summary of the trend towards the
> "workerless state" and the social implications thereof.
>
> My own response is to expand the public sector work force, by paying
> people to serve in support roles. In teaching, my former "personal and
> professional productivity" activity ( I love your choice of words! ), the
> employment of teachers' aides at a beginning ratio of one aide for every
> five teachers would create 20 000 jobs. The contribution of their assistance
> would free up teacher time from routine and often menial tasks, such as the
> marking of multiple choice tests, allowing the teacher more time to work
> with students.
> I know, I know - many will argue "we can't afford it!" But I wonder
> how much unemployment, with its concomitant crime and social upheaval we can
> afford.
> No solutions, only problems. If we don't start to come up with
> answers, we'll pay a heavy price in the future.
>
> -Neil
>