 We're here at the ITU studio in Geneva and I'm very pleased to be joined today by Doreen Lango, who is manager of member services for the Vanuatu National Providence Fund. Doreen, thank you very much indeed for being with us today. Thank you, thank you, Max. I'd like to start off by asking you a little bit about an incredibly successful project which I know that you've been involved with to promote digital inclusion in Vanuatu through the Community Association, which is a telecentrum, in fact, built for your community. Could you tell us a little bit more about what led you to this idea and how you developed the project? Okay, thank you, Max. An association was born and it's called Whole Right of Association. It was founded by the founder was by Dr Richard Leona and purposely to unite the community so that they can come together and work together to support the betterment of their community. And this is to be able to have access to better education, better health services, post-economic systems, and that's how the association was formed. And in the community area there was a land that was leased by the government of Vanuatu. And this land was the government of Vanuatu, built some lamps, some of money into the community. And then what the community did was they used the money and they used the money to establish an office, to build an office. And then they also used the money as a collateral to build and to introduce services into the community. And at that time, this was way back in 2008, at that time they see ICT, Internet and Telephone was the first priority. So that four very main reasons is firstly is that they could be able to communicate with between offices, the office of the association and the office of the advisory group people back in the main town and also with stakeholders. And they could also be able to, the offices in the office are able to learn and be developed how to manage an office and also for communications between the community and the friends and families in town. So at the time a system was bought, a satellite dish, one computer and one internet connection and three telephones and a solar system. It cost the association about one million Fattu, which is equivalent to ten thousand US dollar and that's how it began. And what impact did this have on the community? There is a substantial positive impact on the community. First of all, directly the offices have, there is established communication between the offices. The advisory board committee, which are all in Villa, which is the main town of Onatu and the office. And then also indirectly the offices who have been recruited from the local community, we can see a lot of development in themselves and this is seen during the presentation on the reports. They use PowerPoint presentations to do their reports and how they structure their reports. You can see that they have learned so much from the internet and from the telecenter. And also directly when it was started, it was only one computer and then eventually it expands because the need grows. And then we have people around the community area, they come in the dropout students or people who cannot make it to town. They have online studies and we have people in the community coming to use the services to communicate with their families and friends and for secretarial work. And some schools in the area, they use the telecenter to, they have visits. They visit once in a while to the telecenter and they use the computers and they look into the internet. And then we also have the community area, the farmers, they use the telecenter to sell the products, their cash crops. And they come in to sell the cash crops, the telecenter by the cash crops and then send it to Villa for exports or for local market input villa. And you could see the telecenter like a middle person between the community and the open areas. So there was a lot of impact in the way people, you could see people having, they've improved their living standard and they have access to communication that they can communicate with their families and friends or for agencies, emergency, emergencies, hospitals or even as far as the police, they could contact the police for whatever that is happening in the rural areas in the community. But there was a big impact and the community and the advisory board committee is very well pleased with the impact that we see on the community. And how did you successfully manage a self-sustaining model for this project and do you think it could be replicated in other regions? Yes. Sustainable, it's an issue of its own. And how we managed the sustainability was, you couldn't force technology into the community. But what happened is there was a need. So it began as a small scale and then the need grows and then while the need grows there is demand and the people could pay. So they come in to pay for internet, we charge ours on hourly rate and then they come in to pay for telephone services and they come in to pay for security role services like typing, printing. And then also with the money that is saved in the account it accumulates interest and this interest is able to pay for administration fees. And also the telecentre was able to also introduce other business arms like it established a lending scheme, it established wholesale department, it established several Western Union. So people come and use these services and then they pay fees and then that's how money is collected and pay for the fees, for the bills. So this could be replicated in other regions then you think? Yes. But it has to be from the community. The need has to be built from the community. And that's the way it can be sustainable. The community don't see the need. I don't see any way it can be sustainable. What thoughts do you think you could share with other communities, with other people who are essentially motivated to promote digital inclusion? The community have their way of living. They have their own culture and we cannot force digital inclusion into the community. What we see from the experience that we had from the community telecentre is that these tools, digital inclusion is a tool that has brought value added or has bring value added into their life, their livelihood, their way of living. It facilitates communication, it facilitates economic systems, it facilitates education development, health services and we see digital inclusion and we see ICT as an enabler that can be able to help the community with the existing way of living. What we can also learn from the experience that we had is that we have to start small and then being starting small, the demand grows. When the demand grows and the need grows, that's when we grow along with the trend of demand and need and then that's how it can be sustainable. But we cannot establish something that we cannot make a big investment but the community doesn't see it needs, how to use the system or how to use the telecentre or how to use the internet. So it has to start small and then it builds and it doesn't take a month, it takes years to be able to be sustainable and to be able to involve with the life of the community. That's great, thank you very much for sharing that with us and we wish you the very best with the project in the future and thank you very much for being in the studio today. Thank you so much Max.