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Varsha Singh

Indumoti Mahato, 28, from West Bengal’s Purulia district, did not shy away from using the internet when she got to know about the Internet Saathi programme, a joint digital literacy programme of Google India and Tata Trust.  During an interaction with the press, Mahato shared her experience of how she was able to help many people after associating herself with the programme. One such person she helped was a pregnant lady in her village who had no idea which hospital to go to. “I searched the internet and gave her the address of the three nearest hospitals where she could go for delivering her child. She went to the nearest one, where she gave birth to twins,” Mahato said. She could study till higher secondary level and now lives with her family of nine.

Citing another case, Mahato said, “A girl who had appeared for her board examination was told that she had flunked, and was crying profusely. I searched for her result and found that she had passed. When she saw that with her own eyes, she was greatly relieved.”

These are the small stories that are bringing big changes in the lives of women like Indumoti Mahato.The Internet Saathi was launched in July 2015 and has benefitted over 200,000 women across villages in states like Rajasthan, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, and Uttar Pradesh.  Approximately, 500 Saathis are getting added every week.

Speaking at the launch of the Internet Saathi initiative in West Bengal, Sapna Chadha, Head of Marketing, Google India, said, “With only 1 out of 10 women able to access the internet in rural India, the Internet Saathi initiative is aimed at creating an environment that empowers rural women and their communities to become change agents in rural India. The programme has been very successful in improving the social and economic situations of communities in rural India and we are very excited to expand the initiative to West Bengal. We are kicking off the initiative by training over 120 Internet Saathis who will be reaching out to over 400 villages in Purulia District.”The biggest obstruction for the Saathis is the issue of connectivity and literacy. “We are in talks with some telecom players to improve connectivity in these villages. There are about 6.5 lakh villages in India and we plan to reach out to at least half of them in three years,” said Ganesh Neelam, head of Tata Trusts. Sapna Chadha said their search engine was equipped with voice search, which would prevent literacy from becoming an impediment. This initiative is part of Google’s ‘Helping Women Get Online’ campaign, in order to create awareness about the benefits of the internet among women in rural India.

How does this programme work?

Tata Trusts will play the crucial role of training women master trainers identified from Self Help Groups and Women’s federations which they oversee and facilitate through their on ground partners.These master trainers are called ‘Saathis’ who then train more women in their own and neighbouring villages.Training is given for two days to the potential candidates and after this training Saathis are finally selected. Each Saathi trains 200 women across three to five villages. Google provides the mobile and tablet devices, the training material and also trains the master trainers. In order to drive broader access and continuity in usage after the training, internet-enabled devices like tablets and smartphones are also made available within the school premises, community centres, self-help group meeting places, agriculture centres, for optimum exposure and learning amongst the community.

Chottomoni Karjee, another Saathi from Baghmundi in Purulia District, said, “Initially, the obvious questions were ‘What will I do by learning how to use the internet?’ and ‘How will it help me in my farmwork?’ But I managed to convince a handful of women.” Geeta Mahato, a first-year college student and a Saathi, aid, “I never knew what the internet was all about. Now I know it quite well and even help my fellow villagers.” These Saathis get a remuneration of `1000 per month.