Proposal

On

Village E-mail Program

Prepared by
Grameen Communications

Village E-mail Program

Introduction :

Grameen Communications is a non-profit organization committed to poverty alleviation and promotion of democracy. Village E-mail Program (VEP) will be a joint collaboration of Grameen Communications and Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA). The main objective of VEP is to provide early warning and necessary information to the villagers at the time of any disaster. VEP will create IT related job opportunities for the rural poor and familiarity with computers among the rural population of Bangladesh. Grameen Communications is seeking a one-year USD 37,020 grant for the Village E-mail Program. 

Background :

Bangladesh has equality in law and freedom of information.  Information, warning announcement and necessary advice from government, private sector must be available to the all people at the time of any disaster. At present such information can be available to the people those have communications media and most of them are staying in cities and major districts only. Grameen Communications (GC) through the project VEP intends to bring the benefits of information technology to serve the rural poor. 

Problems in detail:

1. 	Most of villagers do not have any communications media to hear any early warning and announcement from government or any sources.

2.	Most of the villages do not have ways of disseminating information as there are no printing presses or newspaper deliver services.

3. 	Many villages in Bangladesh do not have any connection with the outside world. Local residents do not have access to news about their country, their government, education, neighboring markets, or even about job opportunities.

4.	At present, it is very difficult for village residents to contact with their family members, relatives and friends who work and staying in abroad and different part of Bangladesh. 

Benefits:

The Village E-mail Program will provide important benefits to rural society in Bangladesh. The theoretical aspects of these benefits are described below. 

•	Save of live and property

The VEP will provide early warning to the villagers at the time of any disaster which may save major loss of life and property. 

•	Precaution from diseases 

The most worrisome and pressing issue is the widespread outbreak of waterborne diseases at the time of flood. Many peoples may contract diarrhea, hepatitis, typhoid, malaria, fever and skin diseases after eating spoiled food and/or drinking contaminated water. VEP will provide necessary information to the villagers for take the precaution for diseases 

•	International and local correspondence 

There is a large and growing Bangladeshi expatriate population in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America. At present, it is difficult for village residents to contact by telephone and regular mail with their family members, relatives and friends who work and staying in abroad and different part of Bangladesh, because of the high costs and long time delays associated with international and local correspondence. Therefore, village residents could use email facilities to contact with friends and relatives at instant and very low cost. 

•	Modern tool facilities

Villagers can get direct benefit to use modern tool computer. Through computer villagers will get email, word processing, printing, publishing facilities.

•	Human Resources

Future programmers could be nurtured by giving village children familiarity with computers. For instance, there could be gaming hours when children could play computer games, perhaps for a small fee.

Proposed project in detail:

A.  The Email Kiosk

The Email Kiosk is the basic building block in the Village Email Program. One room is requiring for the Email Kiosk. The location of Email Kiosk will be in a suitable position of a village. There will be two complete set of computer with a DataLink SQ96 communication terminal for emailing via satellite PoSAT-1 (Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA) will allow to use email facilities through PoSAT-1). The Bengali fonts are available for all Windows based programs, the general user of Bangladesh will not be face any problem in using computers for receiving attached Bengali file through email. Basic tasks like word processing, publishing also can be done using Bengali fonts. Training will be provided for all necessary program and ensure that all things are carried out properly. 

The Email Kiosks would provide the following facilities and services to the nearby villages:

1.	E-mail facilities

1.1	Early warning 

At the time of any disaster GC will collect early warning information, interpret (if necessary) it in Bengali and send it to the email kiosks. Email kiosk will distribute the information to the villagers in time to avoid major loss of life and property. 

1.2	Awareness from diseases 

The most worrisome and pressing issue is the widespread outbreak of waterborne diseases at the time of flood. Many peoples may contract diarrhea, hepatitis, typhoid, malaria, fever and skin diseases after eating spoiled food and/or drinking contaminated water. Email kiosk will collect necessary information and distribute it to the villagers for take the precaution from diseases 

1.3 General email uses  

Email kiosk will provide email facilities at very low cost to the villagers for mail their family members, friends and relatives who work and staying in abroad and different part of Bangladesh. 

2.	Educational program

Interactive educational program will be transmitted via email. The operator will be trained to facilitate such educational program. 

3.	Computer training

Grameen Communications will initially offer computer classes with modest enrollment fees and will train Grameen Bank borrowers in providing computer training and services to village users.

4.	Word processing services

Email Kiosk users will use workstations to write letters, resume, college applications, and also use to make documents like newsletters, advertisements and announcements.

5.	Printing Services

Many uses can be made of printing services. For instance, using Bengali fonts, which are now widely available, artisans could print out advertisements, families could print wedding announcements and letters.

Cost Analysis for Year-1:

COST	
Item	Description	Qty	Unit	Rate(USD)	Total (USD)	
 A.  CAPITAL COST FOR TWO  E-MAIL KIOSK						
1	Computer equipment including UPS	4	no	    1,050.00 	          4,200.00 	
2	Satellite radio hardware	2	no	    5,000.00 	        10,000.00 	
3	Antennas and software	2	set	    2,500.00 	          5,000.00 	
4	Training and documentation		sum		          6,300.00 	
5	Post-installation technical support		sum		          1,200.00 	
6	Travel cost		sum		          4,000.00 	
7	Furniture including fan, light, etc		sum		             160.00 	
8	Printer	2	no	       420.00 	             840.00 	
9	Overhead cost for GC including training		sum		          1,000.00 	
	TOTAL CAPITAL COST				        32,700.00 	
	
B.  OPERATING COST FOR TWO E-MAIL KIOSK	
	FOR ONE E-MAIL KIOSK					
1	House rent	12	month	         10.00 	             120.00 	
2	Bill electric	12	month	         10.00 	             120.00 	
3	Staff for operation (2)	12	month	       150.00 	          1,800.00 	
4	Paper	12	month	         10.00 	             120.00 	
	OPERATING COST FOR ONE E-MAIL KIOSK			       180.00 	          2,160.00 	
	TOTAL OPERATING COST				          4,320.00 	
	TOTAL COST				      37,020.00 	

INCOME							
Item	Description	Qty	Unit	Rate(USD)	M_ total (USD)	Total (USD)	
	FOR ONE E-MAIL KIOSK						
1	E-mail per day	6	no	           0.21 	               31.50 	378.00	
2	Internet Fax per day	3	page	           0.80 	               60.00 	720.00                	
3	Word processing per day	20	page	           0.20 	             100.00 	1200.00          	
4	Publishing		sum		               40.00 	 480.00              	
5	Subscriber for receiving e-mail and fax per day	20	page	           0.10 	               50.00 	 600.00                 	
	INCOME FROM ONE E-MAIL KIOSK				             281.50 	3,378.00               	
	TOTAL INCOME					6,756.00               	
							
	TOTAL PROFIT IN YEAR-1					(30,264.00)        	

Five (5) Year Projection on one E-mail Kiosk( Excluding Capital Cost )	
								
Item	 Description  	Y-1	Y-2	Y-3	Y-4	Y-5	Total	
1	Cost							

1.1	
Capital ( 20% depreciation)		
     2,000.00 	
    2,000.00 	
     2,000.00 	
    2,000.00 	
     8,000.00 	

1.2	
Operating ( 15% increase per year)	     
 2,160.00 	
     2,484.00 	
    2,856.60 	
     3,285.09 	
    3,777.85 	
   14,563.54 	
	
Total cost	          2,160.00 	         4,484.00 	        4,856.60 	        
 5,285.09 	        5,777.85 	   
   22,563.54 	

2	
Income (30% increase per year)	          3,378.00 	         4,391.40 	        5,708.82 	        
 7,421.47 	        9,647.91 	   
   30,547.59 	

Profit	          1,218.00 	            (92.60)	           852.22 	        
 2,136.38 	        3,870.05 	
        7,984.05 	
	
Cumulative profit	          1,218.00 	         1,125.40 	        1,977.62 	        
 4,114.00 	        7,984.05 		
								
Total amount of Loan required		      2,160.00 						
Repayment :								
5 Year @20% simple interest								

Monthly payment		
57.23 	
57.23 	
57.23 	
57.23 	
57.23 		

Yearly payment		             686.72 	            686.72 	           686.72 	            
686.72 	           686.72 	       
 3,433.61 	

Profit after repayment		             531.28 	          (779.32)	           165.50 	         
1,449.65 	        3,183.33 	       
 4,550.44 	

Cumulative profit after repayment		             531.28 	          (248.04)	           (82.54)	         
1,367.11 	        4,550.44 		

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