Anamika Bajpayee, a postgraduate student, has high hopes in life. She is not only determined to change her own life but also of other girls in her nondescript Kala Aam village in Hardoi district, about 150km away from Lucknow, with a population of a little over 2,000. Majority of the villagers are farmers. She has been training the girls of her village to use internet and thus opening up a world of possibilities to them.
So far, she claims to have trained 20 girls. While she uses internet now mostly to prepare for the civil services exams, others are using it to further their business. For instance, they learn how to make apparels, new henna designs and handicrafts, which are then sold in other villages.
Girls like Anamika are part of Google’s digital literacy programme named ‘Internet Saathis’, which aims to help the women in rural India understand benefits of internet in their daily life. The programme, which was launched in 2015, focuses on training women in villages in using internet. These women then, in turn, impart training to the larger rural community. Google provides internet-enabled devices to these girls and has developed a training curriculum, too, for them. Tata Trusts helps in implementation and rolling out the initiatives.
Anamika, who has undergone a training programme by Google to become an Internet Saathi, told THE WEEK, “Initially it was very difficult to train these girls because their parents would oppose it. They would tell me and my team that you take some money from us and do not spoil our girls. They believed that mobile phones and tablet computers spoil the girls. But when some girls started earning money using internet, it opened their eyes.
“First we teach a novice how to open and shut down a mobile or tablet, then tell them about YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, and other apps, search engines and other useful tools using which they can earn and learn,”she said.
The age of her students range between 14 and 40 years. One of her pupils, Ranu Bajpai, said, “By learning how to make kurtis through internet, I have earned Rs 6,000 in the past couple of months. Now, my parents encourage me to learn it more. I have a dream—to open a huge centre to train more girls in adjoining villages, who can learn internet and make their life better.”
Anamika (centre) with some beneficiaries of the Internet Saathi programme
Ranu is not alone. Others like Priya Bajpai, Pallavi Mishra, Jaya Tripathi, too, have been learning and earning through the internet. “We are really thankful to Google and Internet Saathi programme for having opened our eyes and made us empowered to a considerable extent,” said Priya.
In Uttar Pradesh, this programme has reached more than 42,000 villages, where about 10,000 Internet Saathis are working to change the life of rural women.
“Google's mission is to bring the internet alive for every Indian. In this mission, Internet Saathi is a critical programme and aims to overcome the digital gender divide in rural India. In 2015, when we first announced the Internet Saathi programme, the female-to-male ratio of internet users in rural India was 1 in 10. Today, that's improved to 3 in 10. We have been working hard along with Tata Trusts and the programme has already benefited over 13.5 million women across 140K villages through over 36,000 Saathis. We plan to expand the programme to 3,00,000 villages across India,” said Neha Barjatya, chief Internet Saathi, Google India.
The introduction of Internet Saathi programme in the villages has created a silent revolution especially for the women. Easy access to simple information about health care, agriculture, skills, government schemes has been rapidly changing their lives. Internet Saathis like Anamika are seen as agents of change in these villages.