Background
Conceived by Change Initiatives, a Kolkata based NGO in the state of West Bengal in India, Nabanna Information Network for Rural Women is an initiative developed with the support of UNESCO in 2002. In early 2003 after field visits and research among local women, the Baduria Municipality came on board as a partner. In-depth research fed into building and organising the network through group discussions, interviews, home visits, training and testing. A small ICT facility was established in April 2003; a second smaller facility in November 2003. Two further centres are planned.

Concept
Women in areas like Baduria do not have structured local communication networks that promote access to information or provide spaces for sharing information and knowledge. Nabanna is about building a community network.

It seeks to empower poor women through providing them with access to tools to help them achieve greater access to information and skills development. The network allows individual women with direct access to share their knowledge and skills with others who do not. By combining technological and social networks Nabanna is designed to reach a large number of women and provide effective local collection and diffusion of information and knowledge.

The network enables the women to plan and create content - trawled from the internet or locally created - discuss it and exchange it with other women through off-line group and media activities and through an emerging online space. Nabanna is exploring new ways to use content management systems and databases, intranet portals and web-based partnerships in Bengali - the local language in Baduria.

Location
Baduria is a 134-year old municipality situated around the river Icchamoti in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, India. The centre of the municipality lies some fifty kilometres west of Kolkata. In an unusual configuration that has been significant in Nabanna's work, the municipality is made up of four distinct areas, separated physically and structurally by panchayat (village) lands. Most parts of the municipality appear more 'rural' than 'urban' in character. The municipality has been divided into 17 wards. Each ward in turn comprises up to 10 neighbourhoods. Thus it is a large area with a total population of 47,388.