In 2001/02 the Tonga.Online project established the first community-based Internet and Computer Centre in one of the remotest areas of Zimbabwe. Encouraged by the response, the project is now striving to reach out to other villages and across the waters of the Zambezi River into Zambia.

The Tonga community—only fifty years ago forcibly divided by the advent of modern technology and the building of Kariba dam—has taken up the chance to use the most advanced communication technology for rebuilding and improving links within the community and with the world abroad. A true local area network of telecenters is currently at the extension stage. There is a smart gadget which has proved to be very helpful in expanding the project beyond the centers. It is a mobile device called Alpha Smart, a kind of expanded keyboard run on batteries.

Penny Yon and Theophorah Sianyuka are closely monitoring the establishment of two more telecenters in Sianzyundu and Siachilaba villages from May 2004 onwards. They will use the Alpha Smarts (and a digital camera) to provide and collect messages and digital reflections on the effects of the project extension and send them frequently onto the websitewww.mulonga.net.

These contributions will create a kind of social intervention sculpture by addressing stakeholders and the general public – from Siachilaba pupils to the fishermen or smugglers on Lake Kariba, from basket weaving women to the Chief’s messenger on his bike or the Cuban doctor at Binga Hospital.

This exercise will be concluded with the festive opening of the centers on 4th/5th September 2004 when Ngoma Buntibe musicians from Binga area and their counterparts from Zambia will complement the modern means of communication and celebrate the smart X tension of the Tonga.Online project in their own way.

The stated project goal is access4all. This is to be achieved by a special outreach program for the wider community and special stakeholder courses:

• To provide a platform to expose and develop the vivid Tonga cultural heritage and Ngoma Buntibe music via cultural exchange and community based tourism (as soon as political change will allow for safer circumstances and travel);

• To provide a better understanding of Tonga Culture and insights into the situation prevailing in Zimbabwe for people abroad;

• To offer people access to information in an area where newspapers are scarce and libraries or other information resources are non-existent, and in the case of HIV/AIDS, where lack of information can become life-threatening.

• To offer access to information for all, irrespective of race, tribe, sex, religious or political affiliation, in a turbulent period of Zimbabwe’s history;

• To offer access to ICT for the purposes of education, information and communication for people who have long been marginalized and neglected;

• To offer teachers access to educational material from the Internet, thereby leapfrogging the drastic lack of books (also reducing costs of travel, accommodation and high prices of books needing to be obtained from far away cities).

• computer training courses in order to help them meet the standard requirements of the local job market or further education;

• To offer craftspeople access to international markets for their beautiful traditional Tonga baskets and beadwork, using only their few renewable resources.


Links: http://www.mulonga.net

The Tonga.Online project is an offspring of a cultural exchange program between Austrian and Zimbabwean artists and NGOs which has been running for more than ten years. In 2001, this cooperation was invited to take part and present the Tonga culture in an exhibition “Tracing the Rainbow” about life and cultures in Southern Africa at the Landesmuseum in Linz, Austria. Consequently a project room with five PC workstations was established there and the website http://www.mulonga.net was designed to present not only some results from the cultural exchange but also to provide platform for information and communications between North and South. Since then the project has managed to arouse interest and raise support to facilitate access to computers and the Internet for the Tonga community. The first Information Technology Centre with 15 PC workstations was established at Binga High School in October 2001 and has become a powerhouse for computer training, e-learning and access to information. The focus of the current phase of the project is to establish “satellite” IT centers in two rural communities 60 and 70 km away from Binga respectively. The schools involved are Siachilaba Primary School, and Sianzyundu Secondary School. Special Training and Outreach Programs have been developed to introduce new users who have never been exposed to computers. Particular target groups such as women and girls are receiving extra attention in order to ensure that access to training is enjoyed by all sectors of these rural communities and that nobody is excluded. The project is carried out by a network of collaborating stakeholders on the ground with the relevant School Development Committees. The core project team consists of a dozen members collaborating via e-mail and Internet amongst each other - on the ground in Binga area, in the capital city Harare, in Linz and Vienna at the Austrian end, and in the Tonga diaspora as far as the USA. The local partners are WorldLinks and the Austrian NGO Horizon 3000. Support in terms of training, capacity building, fundraising, publicity and cultural exchange is provided by the NGO’s Kunzwana Trust in Zimbabwe, and Austria Zimbabwe Friendship Association in Linz/Austria. Penny Yon joined AZFA and Kunzwana Trust as a publicist for the Nyaminyami Festival in 1997. Since 2002 she has been based in Binga as a consultant for the Tonga.Online project. Peter Kuthan lived in Zimbabwe from 1989 – 1992, has initiated and managed cultural exchange projects between Austria and Zimbabwe, Chairman of Austria Zimbabwe Friendship Association since 1993.