Google’s Internet Saathi program empowering women of Gokulpur village in West Bengal

Google launched the ‘ **Internet Saathi** ’ program back in July 2015 in association with Tata Trusts to overcome the digital gender disparity in rural India and empower women and communities to facilitate digital literacy by making them aware of the benefits of the Internet. According to Google, out of the total Internet population in India, about 70 percent are men while 30 percent are women, which is quite big. When we move to rural India, the situation gets worse as out of 10 people who have access to the Internet, only one is a woman. Some of the reasons include family pressure and lack of interest or knowledge. Under the program, Google trains and educates women on how to use devices like smartphones and tablets thereby making them understand what the Internet is, how to use it and all about its potential. These women then go to their villages and educate other women. They get access to information around healthcare, better farming techniques, cooking, entertainment, and more. As of today about 60,000 villages in India now come under the Internet Saathi program and it aims to reach 3 lakh in couple of more years. Last year in June, the program was launched in villages of West Bengal, with the most recent one being Gokulpur located near Kharagpur. I got a chance to visit the remote village and speak to a few ‘Internet Saathis’. Smriti Lekha, a local resident of the village, became an Internet Saathi last December. She told me how happy she was getting the training and how she uses her smartphone to watch news and videos. While she is still new to the program, she understood most of the terminology and her way around smart devices. When asked about any difficulties faced while getting access to the internet, she mentioned that the network is not very stable and most of the times she only manages to get 2G connectivity. Having the opportunity to use a tablet and a smartphone, Moushmi told me that she has been given training from Google and has been assigned four villages in the area. She regularly visits the women in those villages to teach them the basics of using a smartphone. Working for women welfare and child development, she has been spreading awareness around health and social and economical barriers. Just like Smriti, she told me that apart from connectivity, she hasn’t faced any issues during her 15 days of becoming an Internet Saathi. The inititative is certainly making a presence. However, the rate is slow and will pick up pace in time. Of course, having a stable connection is important, but familiarising and making the rural population comfortable with hardware and the internet is a larger task that needs to be accomplished.