Declaration of somos@telecentros for World Summit on the Information Society

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The participants of II the Regional Meeting of somos@telecentros, celebrated between the 9th and 11th of April of 2003, in Quito, Ecuador;

Considering that the mission of somos@telecentros establishes that it is need to generate and to strengthen, from Latin America and the Caribbean, a human network, based on solidarity, communicative, democratic and participative that generates policies based on the principles of respect to cultural, linguistic and ethnic, ideological, generational and fair to gender considerations and it stimulates the use and social appropriation of the information and communication technologies by the different actors, organizations, social movements, communities and citizen networks, generating and endorsing the processes towards a sustainable, real and equitable development of the society by means of a global movement of communitarian telecentres;

Participating in the preparatory process towards the World Summit on the Information Society, that it will be carried out in Geneva 2003 and Tunisia 2005; and starting off of the fact that we are organizations and individual with trajectory in the work for the human development, supported by ICT, and that for that reason we have meaningful experiences and knowledge;

We point out the following:

We think it is necessary to open and to stimulate participative debates and critical analytical reflections on the concept and the nature of the information society.

That, only the strengthening of the local capacities will allow inclusive processes to attend the necessities and demands of the communities and the active participation of these communities in the course that takes the Society.

That, it is necessary to promote continuous learning processes on ICT for the development of capacities on the individuals and communities in order to manage the appropriate use of the ICT as tools to solve their problems, to fortify local identities and cultures and to satisfy real necessities.

We think that it is required the fortification of capacities and skills so that the people may develop and share useful contents by themselves, which serve to satisfy their necessities and to improve their quality of life.

We maintain, that the topic of access extends the borders of the connectivity, the ICT infrastructure and the ICT itself.

We maintain, that the access and appropriation of the information are a requirement for the development and freedom of the individuals.

We believe in the necessity of promoting local processes of technological innovation.

The initiatives arisen from the civil society in relation to public policies and regulatory frames should be considered. Specially those that look for an integral solution and are not biased to a particular topic.

We thought that it is necessary the formulation, discussion, implementation and development of transversal public and/or private policies, locals, nationals, regional and supra-regional, with participation of the different social actors, who guarantee the attainment of all the mentioned aspects.