While Social media in the country is going gaga about upcoming elections, we at Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), use the medium to empower people at grassroots. In one of our attempts to use social media as a tool to empower, we initiated a Social Media for Empowerment website. To know more about the initiative visit our website. Trying to improve the living conditions of people in the country we lately got involved in a project funded by the European Union. The initiative aims at reaching the poorest of poor in five districts by offering them information regarding government entitlements on their doorsteps. DEF organized the first inception workshop of this project with EU and 14 other NGOs in the first week of February. Through another initiative in collaboration with the European Union, DEF will work towards discussing issues, building capacities and understanding Internet as human rights. We at DEF believe in the power of mobile immensely. Through our experiences with women mobile phone users we have observed that they feel highly secured and empowered with the most basic handset. Exploring the possibilities of Mobiles as a tool for Social & Behaviour Change, UNICEF India & DEF joined hands to discover the concept of 'mobile as a communication tool for development' in areas of information dissemination. The application for Call for Experiences, Practices and Case Studies will open from the 15th February. We recently established a new Community Information Resource Centre (CIRC) in village Jhodinda Bhojpura, Phagi Tehsil, near Jaipur, Rajasthan. The centre was opened in the first week of February. The local coordinator of this CIRC is an inspiring woman, Vijay Lakshmi, who stood up against the ill practices of child marriage since her teenage years. She now looks forward to using the power of digital tools to make hundreds of girls in her village digitally empowered. Through one of our projects' 'Chanderiyaan', which we started in 2010, we empowered many people of Chanderi, a small town and cluster of weavers of Chanderi silk. The weavers are now selling their traditional hand woven sarees through e-commerce. Since the launch of the portal last month, they have sold products worth more than Rs 76,000 (1223 USD), online and for more than 2,00,000 (3220USD) through online references. The portal now gets bookings and online enquiries on a daily basis.We are pleased to inform our readers that National Digital Literacy Mission' one of DEF's partnered initiative, was honored with the flame award for the year 2013. DEF is the proud participant of the initiative which helped in achieving 100% household literacy in three villages in the country. Last month , we also developed the website, Khamayati.org, for Barefoot College, Tilonia, Rajasthan. The website aggregates information about folk musicians and artists of Rajasthan and showcases traditional and folk art of India. Through this edition of the newsletter we unfold stories of our illiterate heroes at grassroots who are contributing in eradicating some of the country's most pressing socio-economic problems through Internet. Some of the leaders who have taken an initiative to bring in a change are: -Vijay Roy, a refugee settled with Sahriya tribes in Rajasthan; a second grade pass Raghav Mahto, who is serving in remote villages in Bihar with the help of internet; and Kalley Bhai- an author, writer, historian, precision handloom weaver, tourist guide, research, and development activist. We wish the readers a happy reading!