Swara

About the project: Swara Platform and Network Swara IVR is a technology platform that enables real-time feedback from the grassroots regarding administrative schemes and other areas of governance and democracy. It has been successfully piloted since 2010 in Chhattisgarh and other parts of Central India and has proven itself to be an effective bridge between the poorest sections of society in remote areas and administration and concerned citizens in cities.

The CGNetSwara pilot (https:// cgnetswara.org, 08041137280) receives between300-400 calls a day from user base of over 23000 people.

The reports are transcribed and moderated by trained volunteers, before they are forwarded to the web. Once the messages are released, listeners ar

e encouraged to provide whatever assistance they can to the contributor. This could be as simple as showing solidarity or more tangible, s

Scope of case study: The Swara tech team has focused on making the technology simple and cheap and the platform is now being deployed by communities and nonprofits, both in the country as well as in other parts of the developing world (e.g., Indonesia and Afghanistan)

Swara enables the creation of voice-portals, accessible over phone via an Interactive Voice Response system as well as the web. Users can either record content or listen to content released by the administrators. Administrators can transcribe and publish a message as well as forward it to social media. Statistics regarding user behavior and call data can also be extracted from the system.

Value proposition: Swara is unique because it provides local, tribal language speaking journalists and reporters who are involved at the bottom and they train

Learning from the Project : Everyone wants their voice to be heard and Swara provides a platform to the people at the bottom of the pyramid and this combination creates a volume of 600 trained people, 24,000 unique users, 3000 contributors, 1000 published contributors through 200,000 calls received, 10,000 posts recorded, 27,000 published stories and the through this speed volume will be doubled up in just one year.

Issues & Challenges: The main challenge came into existence while implementing the project that the area doesn’t have one language to speak for reporting and connecting the locals with the world. Also the tribal communities are located at very remote areas and this is difficult to regularly up and down there and collects information about community welfare, crimes, education, politics etc. So the connected network of masses, mobile phones and website/ IVR and the volunteers, trainers, reporters etc. was designed to help locals. The content collected is locally relevant, it has to be through the trained volunteers and it takes lot of patience and great amount of offline follow up.

Account of the beneficiary: Brijesh Kumar, a dalit activist from village Lohgarh in Rewa district of MP says in past he has used Swara in getting dalits their due wages, bonded laborers rescued and getting them subsidized ration etc. On 6th August they open a Dalit Swara Bal Kendra (child center) where they plan to teach Dalit children for 2 hours free of cost and once a week and also tell people on how to use Swara to solve their problems. For more Birjeshji can be reached at 07898663342 – See more at: https://cgnetswara.org/#sthash.QOrODdvb.dpuf