Community designed ICT’s for building resilience:The Granitenet project.

Rural communities, such as Stanthorpe in SW Queensland have faced challenges on social, environmental, cultural and economic fronts, and found the means to “bounce back” from adversity. From 2003 2006 “A Stanthorpe study” was conducted by a collaborative research team (Hegney, Ross, Baker, Rogers-Clark, King, Buikstra et.al. 2008), which identified personal and community resilience factors that enhance psychological wellness. This paper explores the occurrence of these eleven identified factors in relation to another collaborative participatory action research project that began in 2006, that aims to build capacity and strengthen resilience through the use of ICT. The GraniteNet project is a “grass roots” initiative that has used “insider’ and “outsider” expertise to create the vision of “A sustainable community designed, owned and managed portal, www.granitenet.com.au that will support Stanthorpe’s development as a learning community.” Lifelong learning principles underpin the portal concept, enhancing community connectedness through a user friendly interface and content management system.