Analysing a Rural Community's Reception of ICT in Ghana

The Fiankoma Project was a development awareness (DA) initiative run by the Video Educational Trust aiming to link the small rural community of Fiankoma (Ghana) with people and institutions in Brighton UK through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). People in both settings produced accounts of their lives using digital media that were turned into a Web site for cultural exchange and development education. A parallel research project Understandings of education in an African village: The impact of information and communication technologies1 studied the effects of the intervention on the Ghanaian community, seeking to gain the perspective of rural Africans on ICT and development and particularly education. Ethnographic and participatory methods enabled the research to achieve an unusual perspective on these issues (Thomas & Ahmed, 2004; Chambers, 2003).