TONGA ONLINE: ICT as Instrument of Survival (Language: English)
Tonga.Online Project
www.mulonga.net

"In the 21st Century, the capacity to communicate will almost certainly be a key human right." Nelson Mandela

Since its launch in 2001, the Tonga.Online Project has focused attention on promoting a Tonga voice over the Internet. The aim is to provide people in the Tonga area of Zimbabwe and across the Zambezi River in Zambia with access to the worlds most advanced communication tools, so that they may represent themselves to the outside world and reflect upon the social, political and economic environment of both the global and local village in which the Tonga live.

The project derives its domain name, Mulonga (meaning River), from the local Tonga language. The name reflects the history and needs of the Tonga people. On one level, the Zambezi River, also known as Mulonga, has become a symbol that tells a modern story of the development of massive but unshared technology ? the construction of Kariba Dam on Tonga homeland. Mulonga constantly revokes memories of how the Tonga people were displaced, nearly 50 years ago, to make way for the building of this dam. Yet, even today, they are still bypassed by the huge commercial benefits from tourism and electricity that now derive from their former habitat, an environment which has transformed into the vast expanse of water known as Lake Kariba.

On another level, the constant flow of the Zambezi is a symbol of continuity which, today, represents the needs of the Tonga people both to communicate amongst themselves and with others, and to preserve and develop their rich cultural heritage. The Tonga.Online Project seeks to establish and expand communication infrastructure with and amongst the Tonga by joining them with modern information and communication technology (ICT). A number of school-based telecenters - or Information Technology Centers ITCs - have so far been established and these already cater for the larger community, with more schools having been earmarked for development ? even across the lake.



Peter Kuthan
Peter Kuthan, born in 1945, Sociologist, freelance consultant for M&E in development cooperation, chairperson of Austria Zimbabwe Friendship Association / AZFA, activist for cultural exchange, initiated Tonga.Online project in Binga district / Zimbabwe.