Trips in the piloting constituencies: Citizens get to use the platform

The Botswana Speaks Team at the Parliament of Botswana is going for a trip in the four piloting constituencies of the project. Two members of the team will be going to the various constituencies (different members for each trip), together with an IT Officer who will be going to all of them.

Timeline
The team will spend 5 working days in each of the four piloting constituencies as follows:
•    Nata/Gweta: from Monday 29 July to Friday 2 August
•    Boteti North: from Monday 5 August to Friday 9 August
•    Maun West: from Monday 12 August to Friday 16 August
•    South East South: from Monday 19 August to Friday 23 August

The Parliament will bring laptops with internet modems for the public to use during the meetings. After a quick presentation of the platform, most of the time will be spent on citizens using the platform and sending their questions / concerns to their elective representative with the assistance of the team.

The agenda of the meetings that will be organised this week at Nata/Gweta is as follows:
•    Tuesday 30 July : Nata, Nata Senior School, starting at 09:00
•    Wednesday 31 July: Gweta, Kutlwano Junior Secondary School, starting at 09:00
•    Thursday 1 August: Sowa Town, Joiba Complex, starting at 09:00

The main objective of the trips is to raise citizens’ awareness about Botswana Speaks Parliamentary Initiative and to increase their activity on the platform, emphasizing the U-Speak component.
The specific objectives are listed below:
•    Organise Botswana Speaks meetings with citizens in several villages of each constituency, presenting them the platform and training them on how to use it.
•    Capacitate the constituency officers on the ground with regards to the usage of the platform, the offline application, the promotion of the project and the organisation of the constituency meetings.
•    Enhance visibility on the project within the constituencies.

Since the launch of the project, the Botswana Speaks Parliamentary Initiative team visited the constituencies on two occasions: once in February 2013 to present the project to the local authorities and another time in April 2013 to launch the piloting phase.