Abstract:

This paper links the lifelong learning of (rural and indigenous) women in economic poverty with the Information and Communication Technology (ICT). As a conceptual focus it is sustained that lifelong learning in poverty contexts has a different meaning and purpose from those it has in northern countries, since it must respond to the needs, cultural practices and vision of the women's world.

Findings in our previous research, in Mexico, are briefly described, in which it is outlined that, instead of getting basic literacy, completing their school education, or receiving technical training, women's priorities for a better living are: empowerment, self-esteem, self-efficiency, strengthening of community ties, knowledge of themselves, elimination of domestic violence, etc, etc.

Practical experiences described within this framework show women's opening-up and willingness to use ICTs. These technologies have a meaning for rural women to the extent they are useful for collective projects which enhance their ethnic identity and strengthen their community life. In our experience, women use ICTs to: share topics with their peers that are meaningful for them, extend their voice (express or communicate something), write as an acknowledgment of themselves, and about what gives them an identity, resolve a common problem (act to obtain supports), strengthen group organization processes, etc... It is concluded that lifeskills in poverty contexts have another content and that the ICTs are relevant and viable if they are collective and they reinforce ethnic identity++ without assuming a feminist perspective of the western kind.

Keywords:

lifeskills in adult education, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Rural women.