Treinta y cinco participantes de seis paises latinoamericanos asisten al taller de GEM, metodología de evaluación con perspectiva de género de proyectos TIC, que se realiza en Santo Domingo, del 2 al 4 de noviembre. En su mayoría, representan a las oficinas de la Mujer de sus países, tanto a nivel nacional como provincial.

In rural Latin America, women are fed up of hearing that they are “too old” to use computers. “ The lives of many women in Latin America have changed significantly in the past few decades. Rural women in their thirties have at least primary school education and know their rights thanks in many cases to community radio,” says APC’s Dafne Sabanes Plou. “They are ready for a place in today’s networked world.”

When the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) screened some of the Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX) digital stories in the AWID Forum plenaries in November 2008, APC Women’s Networking Support Programme (WNSP) manager Chat Garcia Ramilo remembers how thrilled the WNSP team felt. “And I remember how nervous and excited the FTX participants were too, as their personal story was about to be shown before 2,000-plus women.” The plenary was packed, and the second the narration of the digital story started there was a complete hush.

GEM is an evaluation methodology that integrates a gender analysis into evaluations of initiatives that use ICTs for social change. It is an evaluation tool for determining whether ICTs are really improving or worsening women’s lives and gender relations, as well as for promoting positive change at the individual, institutional, community and broader social levels.

GEM has been developed from the ground up, and has involved the collaboration of hundreds of community-based organisations and individuals since its first design in 2002. The network that has developed includes people who developed GEM, who train in how to use GEM, who are adapting GEM to increase its applicability to rural ICT4D projects, telecentres, software localisation and ICT policy advocacy, and who are now offering GEM evaluations on a consultancy basis.

Members of the network share how GEM has changed their understanding of gender and the way they work with ICT. Read more

Mobiles equipped with cameras are being used to peep up girl’s skirts as they climb on board buses. The same “emergency alert” button to send a distress signal from a cell phone is also connected to a global positioning system signal that allows women’s movements to be closely monitored by their spouses. Hundreds of Indian women denounce street sexual harassment in the Blank Noise Project Blogathon, many snapping shots of “Eve-teasing” aggressors.

The women belong to the group TIAME, a farming group in the village of Peko-Misegese, in Morogoro. “TIAME” is the local language for “lets us work together”. This group produces various crops including vegetables, beans, sunflower and round potatoes but accessibility to market information is a big problem.

Del 21 al 23 de julio se realizará en Bogotá, Colombia, un taller de GEM, Metodología de
evaluación de proyectos de tecnología de la información y la comunicación para el desarrollo, con perspectiva de género, con el fin de capacitar a facilitadores y facilitadoras de telecentros comunitarios. Estos facilitadores y facilitadoras, luego de la capacitación, pondrán en práctica la sensibilización de género en su tarea cotidiana y evaluarán la labor de sus telecentros
utilizando GEM.

El taller está organizado por COLNODO, la Universidad Autónoma de

The “Keep your chats exactly that!” campaign aims to ensure that young people are empowered to use their cell phones and the Internet for positive self expression. The campaign was launched by Girls’Net, a daughter project of Women’sNet.

“Keep your chats exactly that!” is a youth campaign run by Girls’Net, a daughter project of Women’sNet, to raise awareness among young people about the safe use of mobile phones, chats, and other social networking tools.