Gems of the Earth is a network of telecenters located in rural communities of Brazil. The Brazilian NGO Gemas da Terra manages the network, providing access to training for community social entrepreneurs and technical support throughout the development of their telecenters. The Gemas da Terra Portal is written in Portuguese and can be accessed at www.gemasdaterra.org.br

The Gems of the Earth Network, is a Non Government Organization (NGO) based in the United States. Our main goal is to integrate the friends of Brazil and the Brazilian immigrant community in the US to support the deployment and growth of the rural telecenter network in Brazil. We are creating a fund to help small Brazilian rural communities to build their telecenters and achieve self-sustainability.

Telecenters are public places for shared access to computers and the Internet. We believe that providing access to knowledge through the Internet and integrating communities to the global village will bring social and economic development. We support very small rural communities, those with less than 2,500 inhabitants. We estimate more than 10,000 communities of this type in Brazil, a country where about 80% of the population live in urban areas. The small communities that we are supporting are the last resort where any government or private sector resources arrive. We want to provide them with a chance to become integrated in the Digital Age.

Our pilot project started in November of 2001 in five rural communities in the northeast of Brazil. UNESCO provided the computers and the Brazilian Ministry of Communications provided the Internet via satellite. The community associations provided the space to house the telecenters and the ongoing expenses to maintain them. We also developed a Rural Telecenter Guide that describes our methodology for creating and managing a community telecenter from inception to a multi-functional and self-sustainable entity. There is also an article published at the ICTD2006 Conference in Berkeley that summarizes our work. There are still many steps to be implemented in order to bring the Gems of the Earth Telecenter Network to full operation. Raising the funds to accomplish these steps and support the growth of the network to reach every small rural community in Brazil is the mission of Gems of the Earth USA.