Grant is provided under the Private Sector Humanitarian Initiatives Project in Eastern Europe to the U.S. National Telephone Cooperative Association (NTCA) to assist the Warsaw- based Polish Telephone Foundation and the Cracow Industrial Society in organizing 20 village telephone cooperatives. NTCA will select sites for the proposed telephone cooperatives and train counterparts in such areas as taxation, regulation of services, contracts, and legal issues as they affect telephone companies; education and training; government legislation, privatization, and labor management relations; public relations; and technical and engineering issues. NTCA will also work with counterpart staff to conduct 30 workshops to teach villagers (approximately 500 per village) how organize themselves into telephone cooperatives, apply for government loans to construct telephone systems, and operate their own telephone systems. The Cracow Industrial Society will focus on training activities, while the Polish Telephone Foundation will concentrate its efforts on field operations.
