Eminima in Empowerment and Governance

October 24, 2005


Eminima bridges the constraints in funding and learning ICT, and puts 
comprehensive ICT tools in the hands of development agents such as 
teachers, local officials, and volunteer workers.

Eminima can deploy practically any personal computer for desktop and 
Internet solutions at little or no cost of software, and requires a 
short learning time of one-half hour to 2 hours.

However, while Eminima enables interaction between development agents 
and clients, it requires rich content and capable human resources 
among the user institutions. In this regard, its home unit, the 
Institute of Development Management and Governance (IDMG), CPAf, 
UPLB, partners with different entities for content development and 
delivery. Examples of engagement are Governance and Leadership 
Enhancement for Local School Boards, Customer-Focused Frontline 
Services for LGUs, and executive/management development in general.

Eminima in Schools


Eminima was used by Ms Laury Arca, teacher at Pedro Guevara Memorial 
National High School Annex, Sta Cruz, Laguna, to extend students' 
learning time in values education. Since June, 2005, more than 300 
fourth year students of PGMNHS-Annex enjoyed Ms Arca's colorful 
learning modules and interactive quizzes despite the absence of 
computers in the school. Students would form groups and share time 
in Internet Cafes to interact virtually with their teacher. Thus, 
Ms Arca was able to engage more extensively and deeply her students 
in values education. And she did this with a zero budget, though 
she coordinated with parents and the school OIC to conduct the 
pilot activity.

If Ms Arca would have to pay for what she did, she would be paying 
a shared website for P300 per year. A new website like this will 
have to be shared by at least 10 individuals and use Eminima 
scripts in the teacher's individual folders. The website when used 
by only one individual will cost P3,000 per year. Sharing of the 
website distributes the cost to members --the number of users 
will have to be determined before putting up the website.

If the school (or any host institution) has a Local Area Network 
(network of two or more PCs), the same service for students/clients 
can be deployed at very little cost. Initial training in Eminima 
will need only from 30 minutes to two hours of tutorial. Longer 
time will be spent on discussing how elearning is deployed to 
improve teaching, and what steps have to taken to ensure the 
successful use of new technology for instruction. One day for 
a seminar-workshop like this will be enough to launch Eminima.

Ms Rowena de la Cruz has already seen the fast deployment of Eminima 
when she organized in June 2005 the first Eminima training for her 
school, the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Muntinlupa (PLMun). In 
September, 2005, she also facilitated the training of student 
council officers of the Pedro E Diaz High School of Muntinlupa 
in the use of Eminima for student activities.

Eminima in LGUs

In addition to helping extend students' learning experiences, Eminima 
can also improve support to clients by frontline offices in LGUs. 
Both PC kiosks in office lobbies and website for Internet access 
can be deployed by the LGU, following the same cost structure of 
P300 per year per individual folder in a website. 

LGU's involvement in Eminima is critical, as it hosts and funds the 
Local School Boards. Given this crucial role of LGUs in education 
and frontline services for citizens, IDMG as an academic institution 
offers partnership with LGUs in human resource capacity building and 
ICT empowerment.

Eminima is for Entrepreneurs, Too

Entrepreneurs are business-minded people who think and make value-
adding products and services. Nowadays, service-minded people are 
also becoming entrepreneurs - so-called social entrepreneurs. Eminima 
makes Internet presence extremely easy for them. Elmer Antioquia, a
UPLB student and social entrepreneur, has been using Eminima live in 
the Internet for over a year now. He was of course surprised that
partners and clients easily find him and start getting involved.

IDMG's contact channels are:

Email dmgph@yahoo.com
Tel/Fax (+63 49) 536 3382
Mobile (+63 916) 960 3388

For Eminima-specific inquiries, these are the contact details:

Email raffymn@yahoo.com
Mobile (+63 920) 641 1165
Text "ebarangay (message)" to 2960

Here are some sites that can be visited to appreciate Eminima:

1. http:// littlecandle.net - the home of Eminima maintained by 
   Dr. Raffy Mananghaya

2. http://annex.ph-islands.net - Ms Laury Arca's site for her students

3. http://ph-islands.net/plmun - Ms Rowena de la Cruz' site for PLMun

4. http://ph-islands.net/pedhs - site for PEDHS student council

5. http://sagipbukid.net - Elmer Antioquia's site

6. http://ischools.ph-islands.net - demo site for Eminima used by the CICT 
   Human Capital Development Group