Barrio Web: 2.

0 hyperlocal portal for community

organizations in low-income neighborhoods

FormaComuna will launch a hyper-local portal, as a platform for

advancing social development programs run by community-based
organizations working in 4 low-income neighborhoods in Caracas
metropolitan area.

The portal will feature a series of tools for:

• publishing news regarding social development programs,

• communicating with stakeholders,
• keeping information flow with donors and government agencies,
and
• assisting members planning and managing their programs.

The portal core feature is a step-by-step application for designing

social programs at the community level, and for documenting program
implementation progress. The portal will provide one application for
managing information flow with key stakeholders: organization
members, target community, donors, government agencies, and mass
media.

The portal will foster communication between the organization and the
community being served. Weblogs, podcasts and videocasts featuring
community news will be published at the portal. An automated query
will track news relevant for the participating organizations and
communities. The portal will also feature a community events calendar
for posting announcements, sending reminders to people who want to
keep track of such events, and generating informative minutes
following important meetings or actions.
The project includes an e-learning tool to train members on the usage
of the platform.

All applications, systems and programming tools that will be used to

develop this project are open source. We will use Drupal CMS plus
CiviCRM, Moddle LMS (for the trainning component), MySql database
and web server Apache. Using Drupal and CiviCRM will save us
development time.

How will your project improve the way

news and information are delivered to
geographic communities?
Underserved target audience

The project targets members of community-based organizations

working on local development plans at four different low-income
neighborhoods in Caracas. This population has low participation rate
on Internet access (12%), and low frequency of use (twice a week on
average). Thus, their involvement in this program will boost
substantially their ability to take advantage of resources available in
the information society.

Two of the needs addressed by the project have been identified as

critical by community based organizations: publishing news regarding
social development programs, and assisting members planning and
managing their programs. Nonetheless, the integration in one
single platform of application providing solutions to the four
addressed needs was beyond expectations for most community
organizations leaders.

FormaComuna will provide training to the community organization

teams members about usage of the applications. We will be partners in
the initial outreach, but after the initial stages (3-6 months), the
targeted community-based organizations should take ownership of the
project, driving the usage, outreaching new users, and envisioning
future innovations.

Most organizations will be using computers at community centers.

Only few can afford their own hardware and the connectivity fees.
FormaComuna will serve as broker helping community organizations to
make agreements with Internet community centers administrators in
order to gain preferential access to computers. We already held
conversations about this prospect with the government agency in
charge of the national network of Internet community centers.

How is your idea innovative? (New or

different from what already exists.)
Addressing unmet needs

Barrio Web has been envisioned as an integrated solution that allow

community-based organizations to work methodically in planning, and
administering their programs, as well as campaigning for their values
and publicizing their accomplishments. This solution will sustain and
enhance the progress of community-based organizations’ programs by
engaging and inspiring commitment from all relevant stakeholders
such as team members, beneficiaries, and donors.
There is not other internet service tailored to community-based
organizations needs that offer a step-by-step application to plan and
manage local social development programs aligned with World Bank
guidelines (which are followed by Venezuelan government agencies, as
it happens in most Latin American countries). Following those
guidelines helps community-based organizations to get their programs
funded, and to comply with budget administration rules and reporting
obligations.
Since Barrio Web will offer a continuous flow of information—in the
way of community news—on programs planning, management, and
achievements, the portal will help organizations in complying with
increasing accountability demands from beneficiary communities,
government agencies, and other stakeholders.

What experience do you or your

organization have to successfully develop
this project?
Team Knowledge & Experience

Project team members have the knowledge, skills, and relationships

required for making this project successful. We count on a team of
experienced software developers that will work on this project. This
team will also provide technical support while the users learn to use
the applications and start working on the platform. Our chief
programming engineer got 15 years of experience developing software
and 3 years working with open source solutions.Most time will be
spent integrating Drupal and CiviCRM modules and customizing them
in order to serve our users needs. We also plan to devote effort to
make the platform user-friendly for non tech-savvy users.
FormaComuna team members have worked for several years
promoting community organization and community media among
Caracas low-income population. Theses experiences give us strong
relationships with community leaders that will help to promote the
project. We are able to bring together different community-based
organizations spread throughout Caracas metro area by partnering
with existing community networks.

We have identified the major challenges for launching a micro-local

portal for organizations serving low-income neighborhoods in Caracas.
Consequently, we are anticipating lines of action and building
capacities to overcome challenges normally encountered in these
communities.

Contact info:
FormaComuna
info@formacomuna.org