Dantewada Jail — A place of digital empowerment
EMitan — An initiative for digital learning and community empowerment of digitally disconnected locations of Dantewada, Chhattisgarh has been transforming the lives of more than 600 inmates at its district Jail.
Today, inmates are learning new skills on Agriculture, Farming, Fishery, Candlestick making, animal husbandry by utilizing the offline smart knowledge server which brings the best of knowledge base just a click away.
“I’ve learned about farming techniques through videos and shared about it with my fellow inmates…” — Neeladhar Sethia, jail inmate.
Internet is not permitted in the campus due to security reasons and the jailmates used the computers just for typing.
Now, as part of eMitan program, 124 Community eLibraries are setup across Dantewada district and Dantewada District Jail is one of its beneficiaries.
EMitan initiative is a last mile implementation of Digital India Vision given by our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi. It is designed for scale and implemented at 124 panchayats, schools and bal-ashrams of Dantewada district under the leadership of District Collector — Shri Saurabh Kumar, IAS. Program is executed by District Information Office, Dantewada jointly with implementation partner Moinee Foundation, Jaipur.
Existing computer lab, which was not much of an attraction earlier, has now become a epicenter of interest for jail inmates in exploring digital content of their interest. It has encouraged many of them to build skills for better future when they will be released from jail. Various engaging and entertaining content has helped them adapt use of technology with almost no resistance but more out of curiosity.
“We are working together with Moinee Foundation to develop inhouse capacity building for which experts are coming from different parts of country. We look forward to create a model of self-engaging and peer learning for jails where inmates can prepare themselves for better future post their term in jail” — S.G.Shori, Jail Coordinator, Dantewada.
Participation by inmates in workshop sessions was overwhelming as they enjoyed various sessions comprising Soft-skills, Quizzing, Paper Craft, Toys-from-Trash and Organic Farming.
The smart knowledge server empowering the eMitan initiative is backed with rich content specially curated for various interests and needs for rural Indian communities with majority of videos in Hindi. Below is listed some of the content available on the server.
Content Available on the Offline Smart Knowledge Server:
- Wikipedia — Hindi & English
- Toys out of Trash by Arvind Gupta
- Dictionary — Hindi-English-Hindi
- E-Pragya — contains study materials for class 8th to 12th (Maths and Science)
- Gyaan ka Radio (an audio series by the CM of Chhattisgarh)
- Mann ki Baat by PM Narendra Modi
- Videos on farming and types of cattle farming
- Videos on Self help
- Indian Tourism
- Chhattisgarh Tourism
- Art and Crafts
- Cultural traditions of Chhattisgarh
- Schemes introduced by the government
- Books
- Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan
- Entertainment (Old serials such as Bhains Barabar)
- And many more…
