A great challenge to develop ICT without awareness in Nepal

Whenever someone talked about computer and any things related with computer, I became excited and talked with them even though I was in hurry. In my university (AUW) I can proudly say I am good in networking and computer skills among all the students and whenever problem came in a main server; IT manager of our university phoned me and requested to help him to solve the problem if he is out of the university. But yesterday while I was in my university, someone asked me how often do you talk with your parents over the internet? I was shocked to hear that question. I felt shy to reply we didn’t have internet facility so I was quiet and silence. My face and ears went red. I do not have words to speak. My friends looked at me very carefully and asked more questions. I requested my friend to leave me alone. I remembered my village so today I decided to write about our villagers and ICT.

Nepal is divided into three parts according to the nature: Terai, Hilly and Himalayas regions. Terai covered 17% of its land and is the most developed areas. Hilly and Himalayas covered with 68 and 15 percent respectively. Only some of the districts like Pokhara and Kathmandu of hilly reasons are developed. My home is in Mirgoulia-8, Morang which is the plain area known as Terai area. All the people are farmer and depend on traditional farming. My home is only 45 minutes far from a city but only two years ago people get the facility of telephone and pure drinking water. Computer is a big dream for them. Our villagers don’t know why people use computer and how it looks like. They thought that computer is created for rich people because it is expensive to effort. Due to its expensive cost people hesitates to touch computer. They thought that if they touch computer it will destroy and they have to spend a lot of money to repair it. If any of their children request their parents to buy a computer, there will be a big argument between children and parents.

From my village, I only know how to use a computer. I have five younger siblings but no one knows how to use a computer. The government has announced to provide computers in government school from class 10 but still they didn’t provide a single computer. Here I wanted to focus to bring awareness among people rather than a computer. If people are afraid to touch computer how they will learn and make effective use of computer. This is not only a story of my village but is story of maximum districts of Nepal. My home is in Terai area but we are far from means of communication. What is the situation of people who lives in Hill and Mountains? How are they living? Now this is a big issue to think for government and citizen too.
The government needs to separate the budget for awareness in this fiscal year 2066/67. After three months the government will publish the budget for 2066/67, they need to separate some funds for awareness too. For this I wanted to request my entire world pulse friends to write their government to force Nepal’s government to separate some funds for awareness specially developed countries like The US, German and France.

Hope to get your support.
Sunita