FreedomBox

I am glad to tell you ,all my experience about a project. We Swecha volunteers went to two of the villages named Lododdi which is close to Yelesvaram, Alluri Sitharama Raju Dist and Bhimavaram which is close to Maredumilli, Alluri Sitharama Raju Dist .These are the agency areas.In these villages there is no internet, mobile signals . Its my first time to encounter a situation where even though I have a phone I couldn't contact anyone . This is one of the most common problem in many villages.

To know about the internet conditions and for placing of antennas in the village we conducted several surveys and interacted with the villagers. Many people shared there problems of their survival .

In Lododdi ,We extended the range of the WiFi using repeaters throughout the village and tested multiple times. Using some open source tools we provided offline services like JellyFin(media service), Calibre and wiki (libraries) . For communication services ,we provided mumble(chatting service), a voice call service is also provided and We made the villagers to install of jellyfin app in their phones and taught them how to use it.

The situation is different in Bhimavaram . We stayed up there for a day. We conducted a survey ,setup antennas and tested multiple times. While setting up the antennas we faced a problem related to altitude .

In both the villages , Many people were interested to learn how to use these services and how to add some data in these services .We trained some of the villagers about how to resolve the issues .

I am very grateful for working in this project. I learnt how digital divide is drastic in some villages like Lododdi, Bhimavaram.In this Freedombox project journey I met some people who inspired me to further work hard no matter how difficult the situations are .

SwechaAP #swechaap #communenetworks #freedombox