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B U S I N E S S ... Y O U T H A L I V... D U B E Y O U T...
BUSINESS PLAN / PROPOSAL YOUTH ALIVE MINISTRIES DUBE YOUTH AND COMMUNITY CENTRE INCLUSION OF TELECENTRE ACTIVITIES SOWETO, SOUTH AFRICA MARCH 2001 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 2 PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT .............................................................................. 3 OBJECTIVES.......................................................................................................... 4 TELECENTRE OBJECTIVES ....................................................................................... 4 ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED BY TELECENTRE DESIGN............................... 6 PROPOSED ACTIVITIES...................................................................................... 9 DISTINCTIVENESS AND ADDED VALUE....................................................... 11 HUMAN RESOURCES......................................................................................... 13 COMPETITION .................................................................................................... 13 FINANCIAL DATA............................................................................................... 14 REVENUE STREAMS .............................................................................................. 14 CAPITAL EXPENDITURE ......................................................................................... 16 ONGOING COSTS. .................................................................................................. 17 PROFIT AND LOSS.................................................................................................. 17 TIMING ................................................................................................................. 17 PROMOTION AND MARKETING..................................................................... 18 FINANCIAL SPREADSHEETS ........................................................................... 18 Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 1 of 1 I NTRODUCTION Youth Alive stated as a youth organization to help the churches minister or reach the youth effectively. It is interdenominational and has been working in Soweto since 1959. In Soweto alone well over 30,000 young people have been members of Youth Alive in the last 30 years. They have become an established community resource. Registered as a South African NGO they receive funding from Germany and the USA. The governing board is entirely South African Africans, as are the managers and the staff. They have clubs in Soweto, Kwa Zulu Natal, Cape Town and Zimbabwe. The centre in Kwa Zulu Natal is more “modern” than the one in Soweto and there is scope for lessons learned to be disseminated beyond Soweto. In Soweto they own and operate a community youth centre in Dube district. They also operate youth clubs in 3 other centres around Soweto. They have extensive links into the community and are networked widely at a grassroots level within Soweto. They are members of the Youth Association Network – all youth organisations working in Soweto. Youth Alive offers a service to local schools. Youth workers run special classes for Life Issues. Currently there is a strong emphasis on HIV/Aids awareness. Youth Alive is seen as a professional resource for the educational authorities and during the visit senior staff were involved in running a workshop for teachers for their in-service training on HIV awareness. Other life issues dealt with during the visit included drug and substance abuse awareness. Professional full time youth workers, work alongside a network of volunteers from the community. Senior youth groups self organise activities and presentations (on life issues) and the youth worker may or may not be in attendance as a facilitator. At the community centre Youth Alive maintain a presence during all daylight hours. (One of the workers lives on site in a detached house – but due to security use during evening hours is very restricted). There are a number of formal activities which are divided into “clubs”. In addition they offer informal services to “latch key” children and youth. Youth groups at the Youth Alive Centre Dube – Young Adults – unmarried adults up to the age of about 27 Senior Youth – Teenagers - the age for senior high school and tertiary education Junior Youth – High School (11 to teenager) Children – 5 to 9 In the past they have offered business skills training, although this activity is currently suspended due to lack of funds. The YAM managers and youth and community workers had already expressed an interest in Telecentre before the arrival of the consultants. They had discussed tentative plans before the visit. One or two members of the Board had worked with Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 2 of 2 the YAM staff and together they had drafted a proposal. Elements of that proposal have been included here. South Africa has suffered greatly in recent years from the ravages of apartheid and social unrest. Though the future is beginning to offer signs of hope, life is still bleak for townships and the majority of black young people. - Violence continues to cause grief and fear - Schools are massively over crowded and under funded - Unemployment runs at 94% for all black school leavers A whole generation of black young people have suffered a lifetime of turmoil and pain, and face a future without hope. (from the Youth Alive promotional brochure) P ROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT This proposal/business plan was developed after consultation with the community using the centre at Dube. The details of the consultation are to be found in the visit report “Consultation Visit to Soweto for KAR R7842 Big World/Gamos Jan 2001.” The methodology of the consultation was informed by the experience of IDRC. IDRC guidelines suggested an outline for a Telecentre scoping process. However this scoping process assumed that there was no existing community centre and so the methodology was modified accordingly. In brief the consultation included the following exercises conducted with over 200 youth drawn from the community centre user groups. • Exercise – Profiling the group • Exercise - Life events • Exercise - greatest needs. • Exercise - Objectives • Exercise - Technology familiarity • Exercise - Technology services • Exercise – acting out a computer • Wider community consultation The profile of the group was that they were all local youth, they have had interaction with the centre either through children and youth activities or have shown a spontaneous interest. There were three groupings – Children and Junior Youth (60+), Senior Youth (2*40+) and Young adults (40+). There were a slightly more females than males. The YAM managers and youth and community workers had already expressed an interest in telecentres before the arrival of BigWorld consultants. They had discussed tentative plans before the visit. One or two members of the Board had worked with Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 3 of 3 the YAM staff and together they had drafted a proposal. Elements of that proposal have been included here. The Yam Managers also had the benefit of seeing the draft output from the Mexico consultation. O BJECTIVES Like many NGOs Youth Alive has a wide range of activities. The intention of this proposal is to support existing objectives not to create a parallel set for a Telecentre. All Telecentre objectives will be a subset of, and supportive to, Youth Alive’s main objectives. • • To discover and develop leadership and release or deploy into the community. (This is to encourage young to be servant leaders in community. ) To develop and/or support strategies and community efforts in fighting poverty. The main activities are:• Education support programmes, • Small Business Development programme • Women’s Development programme • Street Children programme The core of Youth Alive’s objectives are:• Educational opportunities for Children and Youth • Leadership training of youth • Personal development opportunities for all the community T ELECENTRE O BJECTIVES The consultation exercises identified the two thematic problems, :• Employment – lack of opportunities and lack of capacity • Education – the cost of schooling puts the children of poor families at a long term disadvantage (leading to unemployment) As a backdrop to these points there was a re-occurring theme of lack of money, and health advice (health issues are one of the biggest consumers of savings). Destruction of traditional culture was also mentioned. The problems were reworked to provide the positive, desired conditions. • Employment – awareness of opportunities and training for capacity • Education – equal opportunity for education In line with Youth Alive broader goals the target user group will be the poorest “people who can not afford the time, money and cost to use the facility which is meant for them” (Faki Bobide, YAM Director). These are the people who cannot afford the services of the colleges and more expensive schools. The centre wishes to encourage the community to use the Telecentre, particularly children from such poorest families. They recognise the challenge this presents and wish to face it Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 4 of 4 directly. The poorest surrounding potential client group will require specific marketing, and facilities will need to be adapted to reach them. Youth Alive plans not only to announce the new services through the clubs but also to use community structures such as the Soweto Youth Network (which they co-ordinate), Churches (a network of over 5000 people) and Schools (YAM has links already through it HIV training). Youth Alive subscribes to a strong set of values. They wish these values to be supported by technology not eroded by it, hence their strong emphasis on content. As part of the consultation process for the formation of this proposal, visits were made to other telecentres in Soweto. It was noted that few if any of them dealt with a range of “content”. Most Telecentres offered training in computer related subjects such as Word Excel and Cobol. While these skills are valuable the Youth Alive team felt that these skills alone gave only a limited advantage to the job seeker. They knew of people who had these skills and remained unemployed. They noted that overall business knowledge was required to secure lifetime income. (The manager of Digital Village who has recently added business training to his suite of training courses also confirmed this). The team also noted a lack of local language resources. There were no local language primers available on the web and no telecentres had plans for developing them. Schoolnet SA and SASchools although intended to support education in South Africa do not seem to offer Xhosa or Zulu based resources. Afrikaans is used on the internet but this is of limited use to the people of Soweto. The YAM staff expressed and interest in getting youth to develop local language resources. The team also could not identify a local employment resources site. Users of the Digital Village Telecentre search each company site individually to identify job opportunities. The YAM team expressed interest in getting the senior youth and young adults to compile an employment site. Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 5 of 5 I SSUES TO BE ADDRESSED BY T ELECENTRE D ESIGN Since the emphasis above is on shared knowledge the following general issues were raised:The Telecentre should have a Content Led Approach. The heart of the Digital divide is the recognition that Information is valuable. It is an opportunity for power. A key objective for Youth Alive is to create a mechanism for allowing the poor to realise the economic worth of local knowledge and know-how. Therefore the centre should include: A Multimedia Content Design Studio as part of Telecentre – triggered when local understanding and capacity building phases have been achieved. A system for rewarding indigenous content To make the content immediately accessible and obviously appropriate to local people the service provision to be based on the Life Events approach. (This has some similarity with the DFID Livelihoods Approach but is presented on a simpler basis so the community can understand). The Life Events approach goes one step further than simple problem tree analysis. It was used during the consultation to draw out the opportunities for supporting poor people in positive expressions of life as well as tackling their immediate needs. For instance, the challenges of a wedding and minimising the expenses thereof may not be considered a major problem, but through the Life Event approach they were identified as a significant potential problem for families. The will be an ongoing selection and creation of a local taxonomy of information needs The initiative should be Youth Led. Even in these poor areas generation Y have been exposed to computers and accept their potential as the norm. The consultation showed that many poor children had some, albeit extremely limited, access to computers, and or saw them on television and understood the significance of their potential. The ideas of producing local content can be enhanced by letting Youth be involved. Challenges in this area are:Youth have technical expertise (or gain it very quickly) but may not have the authority/leadership skills. The older members of the community may be the repositories of helpful life experience. There are opportunities for South-South Co-operation and mutual capacity building Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 6 of 6 Where possible build using Open Source Options. The rationale for this lower “per seat” and life time costs. Open source options also means that local staff are paid to develop and maintain the software (keeping finance within the community) not the license holders through their agents (often part of the wealthy elite). Open source also has the potential allow people to graduate from the Telecentre and start their own businesses at minimal cost. For instance:- Operating Systems - E.g. Linux, Office applications E.g. StarOffice, Browsers - E.g. Opera, Open Content, Collaborative Working Environment. The Open source approach raises an added issue regarding employment. The dominance of Microsoft mitigates against this open source approach. Many companies and personnel departments believe that Microsoft accreditation on Word and Excel is superior to say a genuine working knowledge of StarOffice. In practice anyone using StarOffice can effectively use Word and Excel. Based on the last comment above, Certificates are important and valued by the business community therefore accreditation is important. Due to the general perception of companies in South Africa (and the world), there may be a need to enhance the open source options with some sort of generally accepted accreditation in order to maximise employment opportunities. The possibilities include:-.Telecentre Generated e.g. Induction, Right to use certain equipment. Global Proprietary e.g. CISCO EAcademy, Microsoft1. Generic e.g. International Computer Driving Licence2 Focus on delivery of services via consumer Alternative Information Appliances (AIAs). There is an increasing range of alternatives from a standard multi media personal computer for delivery and gaining basic computer literacy. The Knowledge and Research project has identified a number of workable alternatives for delivery of services. For want of a better term we have generically called these Information Appliances. AIAs again offer lower “per seat” and lifetime costs. They are often more robust, require only minimal maintenance and are more affordable. Examples of AIAs for delivery of information include (this is not an exhaustive list by any means) Vtech educational laptops3 ; Games Consoles4 ; DVD5 ; Use of multiformat CDs6 1 Microsoft offers self taught certification for £200 in other countries and may offer this in South Africa. 2 http://www.icdl.org.za/ 3 Vtech have been contacted. They have sales outlets in South Africa. They offer a basic children’s educational tool which looks like a laptop and has word processor with built in educational games. Some of their systems have the ability to send emails and plug into televisions emulating a PC. Costs of systems vary between £50 to £200. Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 7 of 7 The AIA approach opens up the potential for significant cost savings per seat and on lifetime costs. While content is not readily available (except for Vtech educational programmes), the AIAs offer a possible cost effective and wide audience for long term distribution of home grown local content. An analysis of AIAs can be found in the KAR supporting report. There is to find the optimal risk adverse approach. It is important to offer security of data as well as equipment and yet to include a scalable system to allow for future expansion. There is a need to explore Alternative Networking Strategies. Most Telecentres seem to built around client server networks which can be very vulnerable to disruption and expensive to support. The options include:-Peer to Peer, Client Server, Remote Host, ASP Key elements resulting from this risk aversion are:Gradual purchase of equipment as human capacity develops7, Minimise the need for onsite 24/7/365 support and work towards outsourcing technical support. This has the added bonus of reducing reliance on any single technical person8. Important to provide Personal Digital Storage. As well as general security on data it is particularly important that individuals with possibly only transient access to ICT services and equipment need a persistent, accumulative, future proof collection of personal digital assets. Accordingly the telecentre should offer:- individuals a repository to store many personal CDs9 (with R/W capability), off-site backup10 4 Games consoles offer a multimedia menu driven experience without the need for keyboard skills. They can be a robust hardware, which could withstand harsh environments. There are technical problems to using older consoles such as playstations which retail at between £20 to 80. The new generation of consoles will have connectivity, and offer basic communication but retail at around £300. 5 DVD is a menu driven multimedia experience. It is an open source format. DVD home systems are being sold in Mexico for $100, and a similar promotional action may be taken in SA. 6 e.g. http://www.osta.org/ Possible delivery of material via many alternatives. For instance a CD may have visuals for DVD or Games consoles and yet still play audio on a common walkman. 7 It was noted that many other Telecentres fully equip themselves with high specification systems from the start. By the time the Telecentre is in full use with capable staff, the systems are out of date and the users and staff are frustrated with obsolete technology. It would therefore seem better to start small and upgrade as capacity develops. 8 The consultation identified that a common problem in Telecentres is that one person becomes the full time technical support, they gain experience and confidence and then either command a salary which is considerably higher than the equivalent community worker, or they leave to find a well paid job. YAM wishes to train people for jobs in the city and therefore does not itself want to be reliant on a particular in-house technical support individual. Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 8 of 8 There should not be an assumption of 24/7 connectivity with the global community. It is important to explore Alternative Connectivity Options. The last mile is the most difficult part of the network in areas with low infrastructure and low consumers spend. Alternatives explored as part of this proposal include:- Wireless LAN PSTN, Lease Line, Radio Internet, Satellite, Terrestrial Set-top boxes Finally, an idea raised in the Mexico consultations that might be adopted by Youth Alive is that the Telecentre should be membership based to develop a stable clientele that would contribute to the main objectives. An approach for this would be a Vouchers system that would allow free trials and then work towards Training. This offers the possibilities for a PR and Marketing Tool for the most marginalised based on yield optimisation techniques. P ROPOSED A CTIVITIES Given these underlying issues and decisions, the consultation took the youth through the process of designing a menu for a telecentre. Initially the groups were aware of only basic computer activities such as word processing and sending emails. The team discussed learning programmes for children and the various opportunities presented by peripheral technology (eg web cameras). The emphasis was on ICTs ability to SHARE KNOWLEDGE in both synchronous and asynchronous manner. The discussion included an educational component making people aware of what technology can currently do, and what it might be able to do in the near future. The key elements are:Advisory services – Training (education and job incubation) – Content services – “Me helping myself” “Me improving myself” “Me helping others” The three elements are of course interwoven – learning how to develop an advisory web site may also be a future job skill and the author may gain helpful advice during the development process. 9 Floppy disc have been shown to be vulnerable to harsh environments. The CD offers a robust environment for long term storage 10 Opportunities exist for storage off site thus mitigating security threats. E.g. idrive. Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 9 of 9 The consultation generated a possible menu of services and activities to be carried out in the Telecentre. The service product list is given below. Some services will have alternatives of presentation and filtering according to the age groups. The numbers (1, 2 & 3) denote either a restricted level of access with heavily filtered content or a differing style of presentation for that service. In brief the required products are as follows: Service menu Children (<11) Junior youth High School (12 – 17) Senior youth 17 - 25 Adults Library resources Learning programmes (school curriculum) Basic Computer Skills learnt through doing. Training in specific work related skill Training in Computer skills Careers advice Issue based advice (e.g. Drug abuse) Connectivity to global community Technical Support services Design studio Business incubation 1 1 1&2 2 2 2 X X X X X X X X X 1 2 1&2 3 1&2 3 1 2 2 X X X X X X X X 1 X Clarification Library resources will contain two levels of access. 1 & 2. Content will be filtered for age group and mainly used on site. It is possible that AIAs will be available for loan and use at home. Learning programmes will contribute to school curriculum at two basic levels. 1 & 2. Training in specific work related skill. As specific needs are identified, content will be sourced and developed for self tuition on the computers with group discussions. Training in Computer skills. Self study programmes are available. Staff training of personnel is not envisaged although peer to peer assistance among the community is expected. Careers advice will be at 3 levels. 1 Generic (but contextualised) offline advice for youth. 2 Specific work related opportunities (including employment and training). Advisory service for Issues will need to be targeted at the age appropriate level. Connectivity to global community. 1 will be restricted to school to school communication. 2 will allow free access but probably batch emails and filtered internet surfing. Support services will include printing, scanning, etc. Where these services have significant consumable costs (eg printing) there will be controlled access. Design studio. Development of local content is the key added value of this telecentre. Key community members, both youth (who have technical skills) and Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 10 of 10 adults (who may have better editorial skills) will be encouraged to develop local content and edit global content for offline use. Business incubation. The community may explore the possibilities of business incubation. The knowledge based services generated within the Telecentre may have markets in South Africa and the world. In the survey conducted by the KAR team, no significant Zulu or Xhosa language resources were identified. Both have software for teaching the language to an English speaker, but neither seem to have their own language primers for use by native speakers. The YAM youth suggested that there are paper based primers that schools would be willing to purchase if they were in an electronic format. D ISTINCTIVENESS AND A DDED VALUE The Youth Alive Telecentre will stand out from most (if not all) other South African Telecentres by being:• Focussed on a very poor community • Designed and run by individuals (youth) drawn from the local community • Contributing to an ongoing established locally driven ongoing project rather than being set up as a new venture • Content led rather than technology led with active encouragement to design and publish local content • Create and use computer based learning for subjects beyond computers • Based on an integrated approach towards livelihoods rather than set up purely as an information and communication centre • Risk aversion by utilising technology in a strategic way - Alternative Information Appliances, Open source software, Alternative Connectivity Options Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 11 of 11 Strengths • • • • • • Weaknesses • Youth with technology skills • Support from nearby private sector through Board Content led approach Open source foundation for cost effectiveness Alternative Information Appliances ISDN available 50 seater bus for transporting whole classes from schools • • • • • Opportunities • • • • • • • • • • • • • Local NGO – African staffed Established community connections Physical asset of community centre More than 30 years experience of management of centre Experience of public (membership) use of equipment including books (ie lending services) Financially operational • • Current human technical skills limited19 Current setup financially dependent on donors20 Accommodation and space need some adaptation Security – two computers stolen 6 months ago21 Threats Production of local language primers and life event information Production of video and audio backed material Storage of cultural knowledge Storage of advice knowledge Employment data service Training for non computer related employment Training for computer related employment Shared knowledge South - South co-operation Accreditation opportunities Risk aversion strategy possible • • • Computer related training (CRT) on its own of limited value22 Private companies setting up shop nearby23 Security – possible that thieves may feel worth targeting24 19 Being and will be addressed by training 20 But Telecentre will be planned to be financially sustainable 21 mitigated by hiring security response 22 But total effect of this small because mitigated by CRT not emphasised or sole revenue in this plan 23 limited threat due to nature of content 24 mitigated by connections to community and types of equipment, plus offsite storage of data Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 12 of 12 H UMAN R ESOURCES The human resources available to the telecentre are as follows:YAM Board – some members of the Board (who are ex YAM youth from Soweto) have links into the South African IT industry. It is possible that they can obtain hardware, software or if necessary technical support and strongly discounted rates. YAM Management – Faki Bodibe, the director, has a basic working knowledge of computers. He operates his own personal computer, demonstrating an average knowledge of connectivity and software. YAM Staff – have variable basic knowledge of computers. Some can operate word processing and accounting packages. Training would be required. Community support:The youth that currently attend YAM centres are above average in their IT knowledge for within Soweto. By definition, the centre attendees tend to come from families that have thought through life issues and have opted to spend a disproportionate part of their income on education. They use the centre facilities to encourage their children to work their way out of the poverty trap. They have often sent their children to slightly better schools. On average the current clientele of the centre have access to a computer for a half an hour each week. The older youth have considerable basic computer literacy. The team envisages that the current youth could form into an editorial and training committee where they can work together on “publishing” opportunities and help each other and their less fortunate classmates on learning exercises. There is general support for the scheme from the wider community and further key human resources are expected to develop as the telecentre unfolds. Technical expertise As described above there are members of the community at various stages of technical competence. The design of the Telecentre will attempt to reduce the need for specialised technical competence as much as possible. When second level maintenance or repairs are required technical expertise will, if necessary, be brought in on a commercial basis. C OMPETITION There are a number of opportunities within Soweto for gaining computer literacy. Digital Village was set up with a grant from Microsoft and its associated companies in South Africa. Details can be found in the visit report. It is beginning to be more Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 13 of 13 content orientated (Business skills). However, Digital village is more than 6km from the YAM centre and Youth attending it would require a bus ride to get there. Costs of use will be similar. Youth in the Dube area were not aware of the existence of Digital Village. (It had a centre nearer Dube but this was recently stripped of all equipment by theft and is unlikely to start again.) Charges at Digital Village are standard for public internet surfing with an option to be a member with unlimited use. Registration/Membership Fee R300 plus Monthly Fee R300 Training Courses, Fee R1200, Additional Services, Office Services CV (5 page max.) R30, Typing (per page) R7, Printing (per page) R5 Private schools. Dube shopping centre hosts two private computer training schools. One runs on a semester regime and the other offers self-paced personal learning. Both are fully subscribed. Charges are given in the Visit report and are approximately 4 times the costs proposed by YAM. Information Centres. Within 300m of the Dube centre, the Catholics run an information centre for the community. They recently (Jan 2001) added five PCs for use by the community. They envisage people using them for self-learning at their own pace. Charges will be comparable to YAM centre. Both parties have discussed co-operation between the two centres. Beyond Soweto in Johannesburg there are many Telecentres of various forms. The most common is the Internet Café. Charges are vary slightly but are of the order Per hour use of the internet R20, B/w page printout R1.5, Colour, R3 F INANCIAL D ATA R EVENUE S TREAMS A spreadsheet is given for the mix of income expected. The consultation group giving an indication of Willingness To Pay (WTP) offered indicative prices for use. Based on these figures the management and the consultants worked on the final product targets and the input required to fulfil them. There are four categories of user:• Local Schools (Classes to use the YAM bus to get the Telecentre) • Students who are members of the community centre. • Adults who are members of the community centre (i.e. who will pay a membership fee) • Adults who are casual visitors to the Community centre. The consultation suggested that each of these groups would be charged at different rates. Based on the above concepts and competitive figures (and the responses from Mexico) the following service menu is suggested. In South African Rand Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 14 of 14 Service menu A B C Unit Library resources Learning programmes (school curriculum) Basic Computer Skills learnt through doing. Training in specific work related skill Training in Computer skills Careers advice Issue based advice (e.g. Drug abuse) Free if disadvantaged or emergency Connectivity to global community 3 3 5 10 10 3 3 5 5 15 15 Per hour Per hour In the above Per course Per course Per session Per session 3 3 1 5 5 1 10 20 3 % of profit % of profit Not available Not available Technical Support services Design studio Business incubation Per email Per hour Per piece printed Given these product prices the accompanying spreadsheet works backwards from “seats available” to generate possible revenues. Given the level of interest expressed by the community, and the current commitment to the Community centre we may reasonably expect full occupancy of the equipment during daylight hours. However, much of this might be community centre members (students) who are scheduled to pay reduced fees. The base business plan has been made on the following assumptions:• Since the target is youth, schooling may prevent use of many possible working hours. (See below - To create an effective use of the Telecentre, the existing 50 seater bus will be used to bring classes from co-operating schools to the Telecentre during school time). Therefore capacity for general use is assumed to be on average only 4 hours per day. • Also due to technical and logistical reasons the centre can only achieve total occupancy at only 60% of total capacity. This has been assumed to allow for maintenance and repair, and any development difficulties. • That sizeable proportion of total occupancy is from discounted members. • That numerically a greater number of seats is made available for AIAs and therefore sizeable proportion of discounted members are students The total income from seat occupancy can be expected to be in the region of US$6,000 per year. The plan is sensitive to the assumed number of operating hours. Youth Alive has a 50 seater bus. One concept suggested is to offer a service to surrounding schools to pick up a class and bring them to the centre for a session of tuition. Initial reactions from a head of a primary school were very positive. If this can happen then operating hours may increase to 6 to 8 hours a day average. If this is achievable the income may be of the order of $3000 per year to the centre. There is an assumption that no profit will be made from printing or auxiliary services. Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 15 of 15 Design Studio (publishing house) In addition to the seat occupancy income, Youth Alive has expectations of using the design systems to create local content. This content will be offered beyond the confines of Soweto. Local language lesson plans – This has yet to be detailed. However there are numerous languages in South Africa, many of which are spoken by some people in Soweto. Product - Making primer web pages in these languages could provide material for schools and for interested persons (students of culture in other countries). Assume production takes 5 days. US$2 per lesson accessed through download from ecommerce site (i.e. no distribution costs). Customers – schools in South Africa (assume 150 sales), novelty sales to global schools (assume 100). Potential income US$500 per lesson. Employment site. Currently no employment web site exists for low to middle income work. YAM could use its contacts throughout the city to get companies to contribute their job vacancies to a single searchable run by the Youth. Payment could be through advertising, through “per search” or by percentage payment for every job filled. Advice sites. Youth Alives key concern is for the health of family life in Soweto. The Youth are currently developing material on drug abuse. These could be digitised and sold as contextualised material for African youth throughout Southern Africa. Indigenous knowledge. Youth Alive can work with its other centres and the local community to identify indigenous knowledge that needs to be shared on a ansychronous basis. Revenue from this (music, culture, art) is unpredictable. Many of the revenue streams considered by the communities are at a concept phase only. Nevertheless some of them show real potential. The possibilities of local content by a mixed community like Soweto has not yet been explored by other telecentres in South Africa or even around the world. A reasonable assumption for the two design systems is generated income of $2-3000 per year for the centre. C APITAL E XPENDITURE The spreadsheet documents the full cost of the proposed equipment. Youth Alive discussed this initiative prior to the research project taking place, but were uncertain of how to identify the resources required. However we are hopeful that the design and technical support offered through the DFID research contract will help Youth Alive to implement this plan. The research project material support finance will be used to purchase the design systems only. Other systems will be obtained through normal donating channels. Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 16 of 16 We have not made detailed technical specifications for the equipment as these change month by month. We hope the BigWorld project team will assist us to get the most suitable equipment at the time of purchase. The capital expenditure on the spreadsheet is therefore specified in generic terms. O NGOING COSTS . The spreadsheet shows the expected operational costs for the telecentre. These are framed on the IDRC guidelines and use local costs. Security will be a difficulty to be overcome. The Centre was considering purchasing “armed response” security having been robbed 6 months ago. If the telecentre goes ahead it will reinforce existing bars and hire “armed response”. P ROFIT AND LOSS . Given the income of US$8 to 12,000 (US$6-8000 from seat occupancy and an anticipated US$2-4000 from the design studio), the Telecentre should be able to fully replace its equipment within two years, and/or expand its services. We note that the sentence above standing on its own may seem optimistic given the current track record of telecentres in South Africa. However, we believe that all the financial assumptions have been made on a conservative basis and that the difference is that this telecentre is bringing added value to an existing successful community centre and is not starting from scratch. We also believe that our sustainability will be supported by two specific aspects of our distinctiveness i.e. :• Contributing to an ongoing established locally driven ongoing project rather than being set up as a new venture • Content led rather than technology led with active encouragement to design and publish local content • Based on an integrated approach towards livelihoods rather than set up purely as an information and communication centre T IMING As described above, some actions have already started. The Dube community centre is an ongoing project with staff and an ongoing clientele. If this proposal is part funded as part of the DFID KAR project, the equipment will be purchased and the project will proceed. It is hoped that DFID will reach a decision by the end of May at the latest. Equipment acquisition and placement should occur in June 2001. Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 17 of 17 As part of the DFID contribution, the field visit to undertake set-up and training in the month of July. The formal opening for the project will happen when the design studio is in place. We have noticed that many Telecentres obtain high specification equipment at the start of their programme. They then take a while to develop the human capacity (both marketing to clients and technical support) to utilise that equipment to its fullest extent. By the time the human element has caught up with the potential equipment use, the equipment is out of date and users become frustrated with obsolete technology. We therefore propose to purchase a variety of systems AIAs, low specification PCs and few high end specification PCs. We will purchase new equipment in smaller steps than the average existing Telecentre. P ROMOTION AND MARKETING The community centre is well connected to the surrounding community. It is unlikely that special marketing will be required to attract everyday use of the Telecentre. YAM is connected to the Youth Network of Soweto. It meets regularly with other youth leaders and a single announcement at their joint meeting is likely to cause more demand than can be catered for. If “word of mouth” and the voucher system proposed does not produce sufficient interest then special measures will be undertaken. Promotion of the content from the design studio will be required. Depending on the output, specialist forum for promotion will be identified. Educational materials can be promoted through educational authorities. F INANCIAL S PREADSHEETS Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 18 of 18 Expenditure on Youth Alive Telecentre Expenditures Units Cost figures in US Dollars One off Per year total 8400 price Capital technology equipment Authoring systems - Full Multi media with connection Vtechs DVD players Consoles Televisions PC pentiums with Word, excel and CD printer peripherals (scanner, camera, etc) Proxy server 1 8 5 1000 200 200 2 6 1 1 1 300 400 300 1000 500 Other one off start-up costs Installing power supply, telecommunications Installing security equipment Equipment and furniture costs (purchase, down payment) Software, supplies, reference, training manuals Training costs Specialist training on "content" 1000 1600 1000 0 600 2400 300 1000 500 available 1000 1000 available 2000 1000 1000 Total Start-up costs including equipment 14400 Operating costs Site and building (rent, maintenance) Insurance, security operating costs Building, furniture (lease, amortization costs over time, maintenance costs) Upgrades to equipment and software plus the capital costs Communication costs (fees fixed, per use) Staff costs (salaries, benefits) Training costs Outreach, promotion TOTAL OPERATING COSTS equivalent interest payments equivalent recovery of capital 1000 1150 in rent 500 500 1280 500 500 5430 Interest Years 7% 3 Total annual operating costs including cost recovery Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 19 of 19 1008 4800 11238 Students Adults Public Public Units Adults Discounted 5 3 8 5 1 1 with training premium AIAs AIAs Proxy server Design Studio 60% 720 720 3600 5760 3240 2160 10000 5000 101484 Toatl annual income in US Dollars Total annual income 3240 13824 1944 1296 NA 20304 40% 0% 30% 30% D Adult See revenue stream below NA 30% 80% 20% 20% proportion D Student 21420 10080 0 6804 4536 Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 20 of 20 12648 126484 5000 1200 1200 6000 9600 5400 3600 5000 Capacity Occupancy Advisory site 29520 19584 31428 20952 Total income Annual All costs in South african RAND Employment site Indigenous knowledge and culture CDs Local language primers in tribal languages Concept additional income streams Total income from "seats available" 3 1.5 20 Basic computers Equipment available Adde value training 3 Students Discounted 7 5 240 Sessions per day Days per year Income assumptions for YAM Telecentre NA 10% 20% 20% 20% P Students 12960 1800 5760 3240 2160 NA 20% 0% 30% 30% P Adults 46800 14400 0 19440 12960 Cash Inflow/(Outflow) Cash balance b/fwd Cash balance c/fwd Total cash outflow Installing power supply, telecommunications Installing security equipment Equipment and furniture costs (purchase, down payment) Software, supplies, reference, training manuals Training costs Specialist training on "content" Authoring systems - Full Multi media with connection Vtechs DVD players Consoles Televisions pentiums with Word, excel and CD printer peripherals (scanner, camera, etc) Proxy server capital repayments interest repayments Upgrades to equipment and software Communication costs (fees fixed, per use) Staff costs (salaries, benefits) Training costs Outreach, promotion Cash Outflows Site and building (rent, maintenance) Insurance, security operating costs Total cash inflow Seats available Additional revenue streams Other income Loans taken out New capital Cash Inflows Cashflow forecast Period - Monthly 96 0 42 42 107 42 42 0 42 42 107 42 42 453 42 42 107 42 42 0 96 83 846 846 Actual Apr-02 0 0 453 42 42 107 42 42 0 96 83 846 846 Budget May-02 Actual 0 0 May-02 4800 1008 500 1280 500 500 0 1150 1000 0 1180 0 0 1573 1180 0 0 2466 1573 0 0 0 393 2859 2466 0 0 0 393 3252 2859 0 0 0 4646 3252 1393 0 0 0 393 5039 4646 0 0 0 Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. Page 21 of 21 786 786 893 5432 5039 393 0 0 0 5825 5432 393 0 0 0 1410 5825 -4415 0 0 0 34862 33451 1410 0 0 0 393 393 393 0 0 0 0 393 393 25638 0 14853 0 1000 1000 393 1000 1000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2000 1000 1000 2000 0 1000 1000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 27048 0 0 0 14400 0 0 0 1008 6261 Total Actual 2500 10148 4800 0 0 Total Budget 500 Actual Jun-02 42 42 107 42 42 0 96 83 1846 1000 846 Budget Jun-02 500 0 0 Apr-02 Budget 500 453 42 42 107 42 42 0 96 83 846 Actual Mar-02 1000 0 0 846 Budget Mar-02 1000 453 42 42 107 42 42 0 96 83 1846 Actual Feb-02 300 0 0 1000 846 Budget Feb-02 300 453 42 42 107 42 42 0 96 83 846 Actual Jan-02 2400 0 0 846 Budget Jan-02 2400 453 42 42 107 42 42 0 96 83 846 Actual Dec-01 600 0 0 846 Budget Dec-01 600 453 42 42 107 42 42 0 96 83 1346 Actual Nov-01 0 0 0 500 846 Budget Nov-01 0 453 42 42 107 42 42 0 96 83 846 846 Actual Oct-01 1000 0 0 Oct-01 Budget 1000 Actual Sep-01 1600 453 42 42 107 42 42 0 96 83 846 846 Budget 1000 0 0 ##### Sep-01 1600 Actual Aug-01 to 1000 453 83 846 96 0 846 Budget Aug-01 83 15246 14400 846 Actual Budget ##### Jul-01 Jul-01 from Business Plan / Proposal, Youth Alive Ministries, Dube Youth and Community Centre, Inclusion of Telecentre Activities Soweto, South Africa, March 2001. 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