Mercado Modelo and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), sponsored by the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF/IDB), carried out the Programme for the Democratization of the Access to Information at Mercado Modelo (Senda Plan), which promoted the incorporation of plans of access and use of TICs as part of the decision-making process by the SMEs running Mercado Modelo of Montevideo.
In order to increase the level of participation of the Market’s operators in the use of services and benefits offered by the Plan, Círculo Salvo implemented an awareness-raising, ownership and promotion campaign. A multidisciplinary team was put together, which carried out two months of field work, doing one-on-one interviews to nearly 100 operators, selected jointly with the institution. The main aim of the team was to communicate by breaking down cultural barriers at the individual level (educational, social/economic, age) and at Market level (marketing practices, working hours, environmental context).
Apart from redefining the interface of the Market’s website from the technical perspective in order to prioritise and order the information stored therein, the campaign involved the development of a free mobile phone app (learn more here), which makes the information generated by the Plan available to the operator.
The interviews were the vehicle to hold discussions with the operators, distribute promotional materials, and to invite them to download the app to their own phones, using the new infrastructure (Farm Observatory, Wi-Fi, among others).
The results of three knowledge products were registered one year later in the form of an infograph, a multimedia presentation and an audiovisual film which registered the changes and achievements under Plan Senda. This project not only involved field work, with interviews to operators and producers, but also the articulation between institutions (JICA/Mercado Modelo/IDB), of the production process, its aims and results.
