Tatiana França is eleven years old and lives in the 'Rocinha' one of the poorest areas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She likes studying, listening to music, and - she underlines - 'does not like to do ironing since it's very boring'. Tatiana is one of the thousands of children who participate in the Kidlink network, an initiative connecting children all over the world. This network helps children know each other, and -most importantly - raises awareness about themselves and about their right to build their own future.

It was May 1990. During the two weeks just prior to the Electronic Networking Association's (ENA) Fifth International Conference in San Francisco, USA, Odd de Presno - a Norwegian national - organized a very successful online conference for 260 children in Norway, Canada, and the United States. The interest in this initiative proved to be very high and Odd de Presno launched the Kidlink idea to some colleagues in the conference. "We can do conferencing for kids again, as an ongoing activity, or we can drop it. However, if we drop it, we must understand that we are leaving something important behind" De Presno said.
On May 25, 1990, Odd de Presno, and the two other founders of Kidlink - Nancy Stefanik and Knut Braatane - gave birth to Kidlink.
After eleven years, over 175,000 children from 144 countries have participated in Kidlink. The initiative today has activities in nineteen languages, including Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Danish, English, French, German, Hebrew, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Macedonian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Saami, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish.
Today, Kidlink is a global, non-commercial, virtual, user-owned organization based in Norway. Since its inception, it is aimed at empowering kids and youth with free educational programs, inter-personal networking and collaboration with peers around the world. The initiative trains kids in the art of growing up and living, without imposing on them adult viewpoints or religious and political perspectives It provides children guidance to get growing awareness about themselves - their place in society, rights, friends, families, and roots.
The primary means of communication used by Kidlink is electronic mail, although other real-time interactions such as "chat lines", various types of web-based dialogs, ordinary mail, fax, video conferencing, and ham radio technologies are also used.
The organization is essentially based on volunteer work. Over 500 volunteers from forty-two countries have joined the initiative so far.
The initiative has been awarded several prizes, including the first prize in the Global Junior Challenge, (Italy, November 2000) within the category "Educational projects for users up to 18 years old", and the first prize in the Global Bangemann Challenge's "IT in all kinds of education" in 1999.

Kidlink in Developing Countries
Kidlink has demonstrated a tremendous educational potential across different countries. Despite having been originated in the developed world , today Kidlink is helping pilot the use of information and communication technologies for low-income populations in the developing world, including Brazil. As many developing countries, Brazil is not only characterized by childhood-related problems (including extreme poverty, inequality , abuse and youth delinquency), but also by 'digital divide' issues', such as limited access to the Internet and online educational opportunities.
Brazil was the first country where Kidlink experimented new ways of introducing a social agenda into the Kidlink experience and methodology , by creating 'points of access' - or KHouses - where poor children could be connected and offered access to the Kidlink educational curriculum and program. The KHouse is a house, a cultural center, with doors open to the public, with a computer lab, and connections to the Internet. It is similar to existing community 'telecenters,' or Internet cafés. The Khouses often are also part time schools as they are housed in university or private computer labs that occupy the space by day and ceed the space to Kidlink at night or during the weekend.
KHouses provide educational services to economically less favored groups, like students from poor public schools, and individual youth without access to computers and the Internet.
The first KHouse was opened in the computer lab of the Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro (RioData Centro of PUC-RJ) in March 1996. Today, thirty KHouses exist in Brazil, including in Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Ceará, São Paulo, Distrito Federal and Minas Gerais.

infoDev Support
In Brazil, infoDev is now supporting a specific Kidlink initiative aimed at expanding its educational program geared to low-income youth through an innovative methodology which trains senior citizens to be volunteer instructors of children.
John Garrison, task manager of the project for infoDev, describes the project as "a very interesting idea. The project is based on the notion that elderly volunteers have the time, experience, and nurturing motivation to mentor low-income youth, many of whom lack effective parental role models in their lives. While the project has had initial success, it has taken longer to implement for several reasons. The principal difficulty faced to date has been the challenges in training senior in computer literacy. The average age of volunteers has been 72 (younger seniors are generally still involved in jobs or in the full time care of their grandchildren) and the instructors are finding that many of the seniors experience some form of "technophobia" demonstrating initial resistance to working on a computer. Further, many have diminishing memory capability and thus the instructional process has taken longer than expected. On the other hand, once the seniors do become comfortable with the computer and begin communication with each other and their youth partners, they have demonstrated great enthusiasm for the program. An unexpected benefit of the program is the sense of purpose and self-worth, which the seniors experience after a few months in the program."
The main challenge of Kidlink in Brazil, resides today in its innovative approach, and in the effort to involve a growing number of marginalized communities. John Garrison remarks that "Brazil has quite a lot of interesting programs geared to computer training and/or connectivity. One of the most innovative features of Kidlink is that it combines both training and connectivity. It is also ground-breaking because it brings together the resources of the university, which are generally not utilized for social purposes. The computer labs are used by school students but also by local communities, and that is not only quite important, but provides potential for growth. […] In several KHouses some of the children involved are children at risk , such as in Fortaleza, where many are. street children. In most cases they come from low-income families, but within more stable family situations".

The Kidlink Curriculum
Taking a look of the curriculum offered by Kidlink, it is evident that a strong 'child empowering' effort is under way. The 'Who-am-I?' project is a eight-month curriculum aimed at creating growing awareness of a child's self, his/her environment and society, and the rights all children should be guaranteed- from the most ba sic ones to the capacity to follow ones own inclinations and dreams.
Tânia de Vasconcellos is one of the volunteers providing psycho-pedagogical support in one of the KHouses currently operating in Rio de Janeiro. She remarks that "information technology is a social demand and its potential goes beyond the educational purposes. [...] Our children are already challenged by several 'divides' in relation to the rest of the world, and the sooner we provide them with access to the Internet, the lower the handicap they will have .
By helping to build self-esteem, knowledge, and express artistic talents, Kidlink is has become an interesting case study on educational technology methodologies . On the one hand it is a highly flexible model, which is being adapted according to the local needs and educational contexts . On the other hand, it is based on a strong methodology and on the rigorous research work promoted by the Kidlink Institute. The research work is supported by a Research Committe of internationally acclaimed researchers, assisted by research associates in many countries.
John Garrison remarks that, in terms of curriculum and methodology, in Brazil, Kidlink has managed to build a curriculum that fits the country's educational and social needs. "The online lesson plans include such topics as the meaning of democracy, the life in colonial Brazil, and the role samba music plays in Brazilian culture.. The kids share their online reports and art projects with other classes in other Brazilian states through the Internet, and, of course, all the projects are posted in their own site for everyone to see. In terms of methodology, as a first step, they teach the children how to use computers and be familiar with the Internet. This new skill is quite important as the computer is associated with "modernity" within the Brazilian context. . That's important since most of these children are exposed to the benefits of technology and modern life in the media, but often cannot have access to them. In the area of communication technologies, at least, Kidlink is making a big difference by "leveling the playing field" for these low-income children. It also allows these children to stimulate their creativity and improve their educational performance in school."

Replicating the model
Kidlink is still a small organization, based on volunteer work and on the support of local donations. As John points out, "at this stage, Kidlink Brasil is still somewhat surprised at how much they have grown in only five years and are quite pleased to have received the infoDev grant (their first large external grant). On the other hand, they have no concrete plans to expand dramatically, although they would like their educational approach to be replicated by public and private schools. They realize that they may not be able to compete with larger organizations, which often have more visibility and are better connected, . I guess they would like to keep their growth momentum going and will thus look for external funds when the infoDev grant terminates. For the time being therefore, they don't think there's ground for major scaling up, but they hope that their experience will be replicated."
Whatever the future of Kidlink may be, the initiative is proving to be a unique, viable example of 'digital opportunity' at the service of children in the developing world. Our hope is that initiatives such as Kidlink will afford children better opportunities for their future, and may successfully demonstrate new paths to fight violence, abuse, and - ultimately - lack of opportunities.
Further information about Kidlink can be found at www.kidlink.org.