iPOD Gadget Impact in Kyuso

iPOD Gadget Impact in Kyuso

By John Njue

As the technology improvement takes place, Kyuso community is not left behind. Kyuso community center is situated in Kyuso district, which is one of the smallest and youngest districts created recently in eastern parts of Kenya. Kyuso is located approximately 67 kilometers from Mwingi town.

The Ipod technology hit the communities around the district early July 2009, unleashing both technology and information on livelihoods and climate change. The gadget was highly received with curiosity and enthusiasm by the community members. Nobody had ever seen such a gadget in the area

Good timing.

At this technical period of ALIN and UJUZI organization struggling to bring about climate change awareness and getting the perception of it from the community; i Pods have played a big role in the awareness process. In the process of the community resident’s curiosity of struggling to know how to operate and how the gadget works, they have to pay attention to the contents both for the Ipod and information fed inside. They have watched carefully and viewed the videos on climate change fully. iPods have increased the centre visits by more than 50% of the people who used to visit the centre.

AWARENESS CREATION

When we first designed the poster on free i pod technology training in the center most people did not know what the gadget was. it was distributed in the market places to target the local community, in the government offices to target the community development workers and in hour notice board. We have corroborated well with the Community knowledge facilitator (CKF) who has helped us in training the use of the gadget.

ipod contents.

Different videos and pictures on climate change and livelihoods awareness, adaptation and perceptions were synched into the gadget. These videos and audio programs can be watched and as well listened to through the ear phones by the user. The ipod can be connected to the computer and use the I tune soft ware for wider viewing and listening.

The I pod have other contents like music, photos, pod casts, Games, calendars, clocks and alarms

This is as well attracting most young people to the centre. Young people are normally very much curious to learning new technologies.

The impact of the ipod.

Introduction of ipods have attracted many people to the center, the inflow of community members have increased by half. Our centre was mostly dominated by elder people who were mostly interested in the library services and typed information for use. But now youth peoples are dominating the centre due to introduction of different IT equipments that have been introduced.

The ipod attracted a lot of mass of people during our information desk presentation. Everyone wanted to know more about it. It was the main topic on the market. Rumours to every part of Kyuso attracts so many crowds on the market.

Now the climate change awareness is almost everywhere. We could hear people say that there’s a small Television brought by some people on the market announcing that there’s climate change. Such information shows that there was some awareness impacted by the ipod.

Challenges

The gadget is so delicate and fragile and hence giving the community people to practice the use and operation may lead to breakage as a result of falling down and therefore it

Needs too much care.

The battery sometime run out without warning especially when you go to the field to train residents from the interior community.

The gadget can only hold materials of a ceratain format and hence sometime a need for a converters.

Most people especially women of this area are fearful and there fore feel uncomfortable when you are too close training him/her

Creation of awareness to the community of the availability of such training in the center has been a challenge, despite putting up poster advertising the same in the market, most people don’t understand what an ipod is and therefore may fail to understand the poster too.

In the center we lack transport services that can enable us travel and train the people during public meetings, Barazas, congregations. We only wait people to come for people to the center.

The common questions/requests:

• The languages that the ipod can operate in
• Whether there are specific music and videos that are supposed to be synced into the ipod
• Whether it can be used to take picture/video
• Whether the ipod has a fixed size
• alternatives ways of charging if one doesn't have a computer
• Probability of watching the Television Programs on i pod
  
• whether an ipod is an abbreviation
• Can it be used for making voice calls
• the cost of the ipod
• procedure of syncing videos in the ipod
• Where one can get an ipod on sale
• What is the different between ipod and Mp3 player

Amongs other small questions