A telecentre is a publicly accessible place where people can get help to access computers and the internet that enable them to gather information, create, learn, and communicate with others.

Telecentre-Europe is an inclusive network of networks that increases the impact and effectiveness of European telecentres by fostering knowledge sharing and learning amongst its members.

Its aim is to support telecentres to provide the 292 million offline Europeans with the information skills, motivation and access that they need to benefit from, and contribute to, the knowledge economy.

Our activities:

i. Networking

• A professional community network
• A network directory
• An annual conference

ii. Knowledge Sharing

• Systematic staff & volunteer exchange scheme
• Facilitates the sharing of products, knowledge, expertise

iii. Advocacy

• Strategic advocacy with International corporations, funders, governments
• Hardware and software donations

iv. Capacity Building

• Consultancy or peer assistance
• European "Get Online Day"

Policy Context

Across the wider European region, almost 300 million people live in digital exclusion. We all know someone who is not connected to our information society. Yet, without strong action, this situation is seemingly accepted, since it is not 'life-threatening' and doesn't impact negatively on their life in any immediately noticeable way. Some may even be happy to be disconnected, and relish the freedom from the modern world that their disjuncture from technology provides for them.

In today's knowledge-based society however, digital technologies represent a gateway to economic and social development, and without it their future potential is limited.

A failure to act strongly is a failure to take the problem seriously. These people are missing out on a wide range of life chances, employment opportunities, education choices, economic advantages, and social and community benefits. Accepting that some people will never be able to access technology, and that this is "just the way things are", is doing these people a great disservice. It is
accepting that they cannot have wider life chances, accepting that they do not have better employment opportunities or economic advantages, accepting that their education choices are limited, and that their community is no worse off without their full engagement. We know, as grassroots organisations at the forefront of digital inclusion, that these kind of outcomes are not inevitable - and to us they are not acceptable either.

There are great things happening in digital inclusion at local, regional or national levels, but we believe that there is a great opportunity to motivate, at a European level, a forum for collaboration, and a movement dedicated to sharing its knowledge and resources to tackle the digital disadvantage that many millions of Europeans face.

In April 2008, a number of organisations from across Europe met and made a firm commitment to collectively support those who are being left behind: those who are not benefitting from all the opportunities of the information society. This commitment is called Telecentre-Europe.

At Telecentre-Europe we believe we can help create relevant and scalable approaches towards achieving eInclusion for the next 292 million Europeans - i.e. all of those who lack basic ICT skills today. We believe in real partnerships, and in collaboration amongst all stakeholders interested or involved with the e-Inclusion agenda.

Since we started Telecentre-Europe has grown rapidly, month on month, and is already becoming a trusted partner for many international, national and local organisations and projects. Our growth is driven by a real need: a need for knowledge sharing amongst all of us who are making eInclusion happen at the grassroots level, a need for leveraging resources and advocacy, a need to develop the capacity of those who bring real change to communities, and a need for real networking and mutual support.

Telecentre-Europe aspires to play a prominent role in the development of a Europe-wide movement for change that will help us bring digital opportunity and equity to all European citizens.

Our action in forming this network, and the plans that we have for it, make a bold statement. Our message is clear: let's include everyone, do not allow them to miss out on the benefits, choices, chances, advantages and opportunities that the information society provides, and do not accept "digital indifference".

Description of target users and groups

Around 25 million digitally excluded European citizens could directly benefit each year from the intervention of a strengthened inter-connected network of telecentres. European telecentres already take a grassroots-up, local approach to working with the most disadvantaged members of society.

There are around 70,000 internet connected libraries in the EU alone. Therefore we conservatively estimate that the whole European region could already contain a minimum of 100,000 telecentres in libraries, voluntary sector, and education establishments employing around 250,000 staff and 100,000 volunteers. It is these people who hold the key to reaching out to the 292 million offline Europeans.

Currently there are over 310 individual members of the Telecentre-Europe online community, from around 80 organisations in 53 nations, from every continental area across the world. The 33 European nations are represented on the Telecentre-Europe online community by around 50 local, regional and national telecentre networks, which between them include more than 25,000 telecentres. One key target is to continue to increase this membership.

Description of the way to implement the initiative

Telecentre-Europe is seeking to transform from an informal network of telecentre managers and individuals who have worked together for improved knowledge-sharing across Europe into a formal organisation in order to accelerate the scope and impact of its work.

Since April 2008 a "Steering Committee" has met by phone on a weekly basis, and face-to-face every three months. It had a public launch at the EC eInclusion Conference in December 2008. Since then the committee formed a variety of ad hoc partnerships submitting successful funding applications to the EC and to Microsoft for a total of around £500,000.

In October 2009 members met in Istanbul and agreed that Telecentre-Europe needed to become a legal entity, with an 'institutional memory', and core staff that will extend its activities. Members wanted the organisation to become autonomous and sustainable.

Within the next three months Telecentre-Europe will be registered in Belgium as an AISBL, a non-profit international association. It will have a permanent staff team to routinely support and facilitate knowledge and resource sharing. This small team would seek to continue to grow and support the network.

The first phase of activities will be to deliver online and offline knowledge sharing, bring telecentre staff and international experts together in an annual conference, facilitate a programme of staff exchanges and arrange European Get Online Day 2011. This last campaign was launched Europe-wide in 2010, from a model that began in the UK, and where around 68,000 people got online for the first time. 

Main results, benefits and impacts

 

Telecentre-Europe wants to provide effective support right across Europe, and beyond, that meets the local needs of digital inclusion. Its overarching aim is to improve the lives and communities of all citizens by supporting them to achieve the life-changing benefits that being digitally included can bring.

Telecentre networks should be coordinated, and proactively encouraged and supported to:

• Address the themes of eInclusion, aging population, accessibility, employability and integration.
• Demonstrate measurable social impact across the European region.
• Contribute explicitly to EC and global development agencies' social policy areas, e.g. Millennium Development Goals, Lisbon, i2010, Digital Agenda 2020.
• Stimulate knowledge sharing, capacity for impact, and sustainability among telecentres.

As a body of leading eInclusion professionals, Telecentre-Europe also wishes to use its influence to move telecentres to a new level of recognition in their respective nations. Governments use telecentre networks as an inclusion safety net for their eGovernment initiatives, often without resourcing them properly, or recognising their increasingly important role in society. By promoting examples of successful initiatives we hope to influence European and national governments in their investment decisions.

Lessons learnt

1. Effective eInclusion solutions do not come down from on high; they must grow up from the roots and this is why our networks of centres are so good at delivering ICT solutions to real and genuine advantage. Each network has its own way of working towards the solution, but the overarching lesson of the first two years of Telecentre-Europe's existence is that these solutions are much more likely to succeed than if they come from well-meaning third parties.

2. Telecentres have the advantage of being real places, where people can ask questions, can make mistakes with a safety net around them. Staff teach core skills like internet safety as a matter of course, to every group of people. Our case studies show that when the most disadvantaged members of European society are given the skills to begin their internet journey, this leads to multiple personal and societal benefits - they are given techniques that help them to save money, time and red-tape, often accessing government services that help them measurably to improve their lives.

3. Great impact comes from straightforward actions: Get Online Day is a Europe-wide campaign to get new computer users online. Run in March 2010, under the eSkills Week frame, it reached almost 50000 people in just one day, in around 1500 telecentres across Europe.