Not sure how relevant this is to the situation in Uganda etc but one thing that I notice here in Wales is how little awareness there is of free and open source software. I could not afford to operate without it! Perhaps one of the topics should be familiarity with the range of security and other options that are available and how to use them. I use Zone Alarm firewall and AVG antivirus (both freeware) and SpyBot Search & Destroy (an open-source spyware detector that also alerts me to Registry changes). I also use a Firefox add-on called NoScript which I find extremely useful, it blocks all the scripts on a page unless I choose to allow them. It's just occurred to me that NoScript might be very useful where poor connection speeds are an issue, quite apart from the security angle, since you could prevent items such as embedded videos from hogging your download capacity in a situation where you simply want to read the text on a page. I don't know if any of the above are available or suitable options in Uganda.

Another free program I could not do without is Open Office which does (almost!) everything MSOffice does. Another favourite freebie is Gimp, an extraordinarily powerful image editor. The one thing I'm missing from my personal wish-list of open source/dirt cheap software is a decent Paint programme. ( I know, I sound like a skinflint, but really the availability of free software makes all the difference to me! I'd be sunk without it!) Would it be a good idea, Grace, for LiA to keep a stock of open-source programs on cds for the community leaders to familiarise themselves with and to copy and install on their own community pcs ?