Feminist Practice of Technolgy

From June 7 – 11, South Asian APC member Bytes for All will unite fellow APC members and women activists alike for a joint event, funded by the APC’s Member Exchange Fund. Representatives from several APC organisations will meet in Islamabad to attend a workshop on digital storytelling and learn how to Take Back the Tech! to end violence against women. This Feminist Tech Exchange will unite 12 – 15 activist women so they can be trained to further train others in the Asian region.

For four days from March 31, fifteen women gathered at the Feminist Tech Exchange in the Brazzaville (Congo) Digital Campus. Participants and trainers alike came from human and women’s rights organisations, the media and politics to learn more about how to use technology to end violence against women and girls. APC member Azur Développement was involved in putting on the event which talked about the hows and whys of blogging, using video, audio and mobile phones, as well as social networking. The FTX is a part of the APC’s Take Back the Tech!

Girls and women from Brazzaville, Pointe Noire and Kinkala participated in a Feminist Tech Exchange training on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to combat violence against women and girls 31 March – 3 April. Sylvie Niombo of AZUR Development, country coordinator of the MDG3 project Take back the Tech! to end violence against women commented in the Congolese Women on the Web blog: “During the three days, participants exchanged views on relevant issues such as judicial procedures to follow for women and girls victims of violence, the presence of Congolese women in the blogosphere and also the use of citizen media for women citizens’ rights activists.

In March GenARDIS grant winners met for the last time after more than a year of innovative research and work to improve rural women’s lives in countries like Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic and Zambia. With projects as diverse as community radio drama groups, pest control through information access and using technology to promote women’s inheritance and land rights, projects were as diverse as the countries they came from. But as this third round of small grants winds down, participants are determined to scale up their work.

“Si un chico quiere empezar a estudiar computación los miembros de su comunidad lo alientan, pero si se trata de una chica, las personas mayores le preguntan por qué quiere complicarse la vida”, dice Mahmud Hasan, de la ciudad de Dhaka. En un país en el que uno de cada dos hombres y tres de cada cien mujeres acceden a información en internet, el acceso de las niñas tiene poco que ver con la disponibilidad de computadores y clases.