PULA NO. 5: December 2004
A Newsletter on Women and ICTs in Africa
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Newsletter of the Association for Progressive Communications Africa Women (APC-Africa-Women) Pula aims to promote and profile the work and activities of women's ICT initiatives in Africa and to act as a communicative tool to link women to each other and to initiatives and opportunities.
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CONTENTS
1. Editorial
2. Who produces Pula?
3. Our Voices: Stories from the field
4. Profile of an ICT Champion
5. Policy Focus
6. News and Events
7. Resources
8. World Corner: Global News
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1. EDITORIAL
Welcome to the fifth edition of Pula. In this edition we hear about using ICTs in teaching gender and women's studies in Africa. Women'sNet is our ICT Champion and Dorcas Muthoni reports back on the first Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) workshop for women in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, organised and hosted by Women'sNet. Our regular ICT Policy focus looks at the policy issues around knowledge generated locally by women. In our News and Events, Resources and World Corner sections, as usual, we compile information of interest to African women about ICTs.
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2. WHO PRODUCES PULA?
http://www.apcafricawomen.org
APC-Africa-Women is a network of organisations and individuals that work to empower African women's organisations to access and use ICTs for equality and development. APC-Africa-Women is the Africa regional programme of the Association for Progressive Communication's Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP).
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3. OUR VOICES: STORIES FROM THE FIELD
Teaching Gender & Women's Studies in Africa
Joanne Henry of the African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa
The African Gender Institute (AGI) is committed to using higher education as a vehicle for social change and transformation along with the strategic use of a range of ICTs to achieve this aim. A recent example has been the organisation's project, "Strengthening Gender and Women's Studies for Africa's Transformation" (GWS Africa). This project sought to address the challenges facing teachers of Gender and Women's Studies in higher education and to use ICTs to strengthen their capacity as well as expand their access to information resources.
As we know, one of the major challenges on the continent is access to information. Feminist scholars located across the continent observe that African resources for teaching and research about gender are especially limited. Another challenge is that many find themselves isolated in their institutions.
At the beginning of 2002, the AGI set out to bring teachers, researchers and ICT activists together through a series of workshops and meetings to plan the design and delivery of ICT-based products to achieve the broad aims of the project of strengthening African Gender and Women's Studies. What follows is a summary of the major achievements of the past two years.
Feminist Studies Network / Gender and Women's Studies Africa Mailing list
The mailing list serves as the communication space for the members of the Feminist Studies Network. The network is comprised of Gender and Women's Studies teachers, researchers and feminist and ICT activists. This mailing list is a community and information space in which professional and personal news and information-sharing as well as deeper discussions and ideas on policy and legal debates take place.
GWS Africa Project Website - http://www.gwsafrica.org
The GWS Website is the online face for the GWS Africa project, a space for profiling and providing information on the institutions involved in teaching GWS on the continent and also a space in which information (in the form of conferences, workshops, funding opportunities, news, and articles) can be made widely available. This space is meant to assist in overcoming the problems of availability of indigenous knowledges and to also address the issue of knowledge production by and for African women. Members of the network are encouraged to submit articles for publication to the website and to encourage their students to submit articles as well, thereby encouraging an ethos of knowledge production among the younger GWS community. The website currently houses documents on a range of areas including, education; land issues; economics; identity, culture and religion, politics etc. It also has bibliographies and review essays relevant to the teaching and study of GWS.
Feminist Africa (FA) - http://www.feministafrica.org
Feminist Africa is the first fully electronic African feminist journal. It serves as a platform for progressive, cutting-edge gender research and feminist dialogue on African issues. The third and most recent issue of FA focuses on national politics. Previous issues have focused on Intellectual Politics and Changing Cultures. The journal serves as a useful resource for GWS teachers, researchers and practitioners.
Teaching Resources for students of Gender and Women's Studies in Africa
The teaching resources grew out of a series of workshops and face-to-face meetings as well as online discussions and collaboration with gender and women's studies scholars on the continent.
The outputs of the teaching resource meetings (as well as the process of the meetings themselves) constitute significant information resources. These have been made available in the form of reports, essays and supporting resources designed to assist teachers in developing their own curricula in their own particular contexts. It also draws on all the different aspects of the project as supporting resources in strengthening of Gender and Women's Studies. See http://www.gwsafrica.org/workshops/
Whilst all these ICT products are e-based, the AGI is committed to the hardcopy reproduction of key resources in recognition of the lingering infrastructural challenges that limit the use of the internet. Close to three years since its inception, this ICT-focused project has hopefully made a significant contribution to the strengthening of GWS teaching in Africa.
For more information on the broader project, visit http://www.gwsafrica.org
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4. PROFILE OF AN ICT CHAMPION
In this issue of PULA our ICT champion is an organisation, Women'sNet.
Women'sNet is a vibrant and innovative networking support programme designed to enable South African women to use the internet to find the people, resources and tools needed for women's social activism. Since its inception, Women'sNet has successfully implemented a number of projects as part of its mandate to support South African women in harnessing ICTs to facilitate women's empowerment through networking and special projects. Women'sNet is an active APC-Africa-Women member.
http://www.womensnet.org.za
In this profile Dorcas Muthoni, an APC-Africa-Women member from Kenya writes about the first African women's FOSS workshop hosted by Women'sNet.
On Monday, 6th September 2004, women from SADC (Southern African Development Community) countries converged on Women'sNet, Johannesburg for a five day free and open source software (FOSS) workshop. APC-Africa-Women (AAW) supported the participation of two of its members from outside of the SADC region Kazanka Comfort of the Fantsuam Foundation, Nigeria and Dorcas Muthoni an individual member from Kenya. Other AAW members had applied to participate in the FOSS workshop Naume Ziyambi, Anna Badimo and Baraka Chuma were chosen to attend
The workshop had two tracks, track 1 targeted women in leadership positions and track 2 women system administrators affectionately referred to as "techies".
Wondering what FOSS is all about? FOSS is an acronym for free and open source software. FOSS is software with a license that gives users the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Free in "free software" therefore refers to freedom, not price, though some FOSS products are indeed free of charge.
Track 1 participants went through strategic information management within organizations. They were able to learn various technology-driven strategies they can use to better manage content within their organization.
Track 2 was aimed at building awareness, capacity and support for the use of FOSS amongst women techies in Africa. The techies got their hands dirty in quite a number of hands-on exercises and activities.
A shared session on technology planning was also carried out. Technology planning is a reflective process that organizations engage in, to optimally use and benefit from available technologies, with a view to advancing the mission and goals of the organization.
Advice to the techies focused on inclusivity, where management is involved in the technology planning process from the initial stages to ensure buy-in and resource allocation and so that technical planning does not remain the exclusive domain of technicians in the organization. Track 1 participants learned how to vet ICT proposals and costs.
The techies also shared their experiences with FOSS. Gender issues in ICT were looked into based on the variety of experiences. It was noted that women techies needed to come up with different approaches to work that can take care of specific gender needs. Women need to be assertive in order to thrive in computing by creating boundaries for personal lives.
It was a beautiful experience. The FOSS "newbie techies" pledged to champion for the use of FOSS within their organizations and share the acquired knowledge. Each left with copies of Debian Linux and OpenOffice.org as they are free to copy and redistribute.
In conclusion it was recommended that a follow-up FOSS System Administrators workshop be organized to enhance the skills acquired at the workshop.
For more information go to:
http://www.womensnet.org.za/FOSS/Index.html
http://womensnet-foss.blogspot.com/
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5. POLICY FOCUS
In this edition of Pula, our regular policy focus column that looks at the major issues facing African women and their effective use of ICTs, our policy writer, Alice Munyua, explores the issue of women and locally-generated knowledge.
ICTs are a powerful medium for sharing information. Women's access to information is a major concern and the United Nations places lack of access to information as the third most important issue facing women globally, after poverty and violence against women. The lack of access to and democratic control over communication technology reinforces the urgency for African women to enter into the debate on the developmental potential of ICTs in Africa.
One of the strengths of ICTs [see below for a definition of ICTs and of the internet] is the way they connect dispersed information, expertise and knowledge. However the dominance of content produced beyond Africa means that increasingly information is 'foreign' to Africa and our local perspectives and world-views.
Women who have access to ICTs are often frustrated by the lack of indigenous content and by the large volumes of information from the North that often bears little relation to local realities. It's largely, individuals and organisations located in the North who have the resources to produce the content found on the internet. As a consequence, most content available via ICTs is not truly diverse or representative of the world's population. In addition, it's usually produced in European languages. This makes the internet an impoverished space for African users.
In addition, women's viewpoints, knowledge, experiences and concerns are inadequately reflected on the internet, particularly perspectives from women in developing nations. Gender stereotypes predominate and perpetuate those reflected in the print media.
Local content generation is a critical issue for gender and ICT activists wanting to encourage more women to use ICTs in order to re-shape and change the internet to ensure more representative and online working spaces. The internet can be used to commercially and violently exploit women and children. They have a right to a secure online environment where they can be safe from harassment, enjoy freedom of expression and privacy of communication, and are protected from electronic surveillance and monitoring.
Africans using ICTs to communicate our ideas in our tongue
There is a need for more women to develop, promote and publish their own perspectives and knowledge to ensure that they are represented on the internet using their own voices. Although language and content are large challenges to women's access and use, there are growing numbers of projects redressing this. Projects have been implemented and creative ways are being put in place to draw diverse content into ICT spaces. But more energy, political will and resources need to be mobilised to change the biased nature of the content of the internet.
ISIS-WICCE in Uganda http://www.isis.or.ug/ has developed mechanisms to communicate women's ideas, and stories in their own languages and to share their ideas using ICTs. The overall aim is to forge solidarity action plans. This happens despite the challenges of working in conflict situations coupled with poor infrastructure. Since 1997, Isis-WICCE has documented the experiences of women in conflict situations in 10 countries in Africa through its networks and made this available via the internet.
The Open Knowledge Network (OKN) is another initiative that is spearheading content development in various local languages within the region. http://www.openknowledge.net/
Open Knowledge Network has as its primary focus the creation and exchange of local content in local languages across the South, supported by a range of ICTs.
This month, software for word-processing, spreadsheets, and making presentations (OpenOffice) was launched in Swahili thanks to the Kinlinux project in Tanzania. Now millions of Africans can finally use computers in their own language http://www.o.ne.tz/
Policy recommendations which will increase content we want to see and use
APC Women's Networking Support Programme "Policy Guide for Gender and ICTs" includes the following points in relation to women's content.
http://www.apcwomen.org/policy/resources/wnsp_policyguide.htm
**Women count: their viewpoints, knowledge, experience and concerns must be visible
All stakeholders must support initiatives that facilitate women's and girls' ability to generate and disseminate content that reflects their own information and development needs. Women's viewpoints, knowledge, experiences and concerns are inadequately reflected on the internet, while gender stereotypes predominate. These concerns around content relate both to issues of sexism and the portrayal of women in media generally, as well as to the need for women to systematise and develop their own perspectives and knowledge, and to ensure that they are reflected in these spaces.
**No public domain of global knowledge without women's knowledge
Human knowledge, including the knowledge of all peoples and communities, also those who are remote and excluded, is the heritage of all humankind and the reservoir from which new knowledge is created. A rich public domain is essential to inclusive information societies and must fully embrace women's knowledge including knowledge that is contextual, rooted in experience and practice and draws from local knowledge in areas of production, nutrition and health.
APC Internet Rights Charter includes the following recommendations in relation to content creation.
http://rights.apc.org/charter.shtml
The internet is an ideal space for the recording and promotion of culturally and politically diverse content. Training in producing online information should be promoted. Any regulation of the internet should strengthen content diversity and limit the power of government and/or the private sector to monopolise or dictate content production.
Websites, online tools and software are dominated by Latin script languages. This limits diversity of content, the development of local content in non-Latin languages, and intercultural exchange and collaboration. New technical developments should encourage local and regional linguistic diversity on the internet.
APC's definition of ICTs
We see ICTs as technologies and tools that people use to share, distribute, gather information, and to communicate with one another, one on one, or in groups, through the use of computers and interconnected computer networks. They are media that utilise both telecommunication and computer technologies to transmit information.
The internet is one part of ICTs - A worldwide system of computer networks in which any one computer can get information from/or talk to any other connected computer using the TCP/IP protocols.
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6. News and Events
6.1. Women'sNet hosts SADC-Wide Workshop: Building Support and Awareness for the use of Free and Open Source Software Solutions (FOSS) in Women's Organisations.
http://www.womensnet.org.za/FOSS/Index.html [English]
The FOSS workshop got underway on Monday the 6th of September at Women'sNet offices in Johannesburg. Participants came from all over Southern Africa to learn more about technology and to increase their skills in order to make decisions about their use of technology. Participants come to grips with technology and also work on strategic decision-making processes in their use of technology.
6.2. APC WNSP's Karen Banks Wins Anita Borg Award for Social Impact
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=26581 [English]
"Our strategy is to get women central, active and visible in all walks of technology. We don't want it to be a surprise to see a woman running a wireless shop, fixing a pc, or leading a campaign to break with the telecom monopoly in her country." -- For nearly 15 years Karen Banks and the APC Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) have worked to bring technology to underserved women and communities. Their work was recognised at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in computing conference on October 7 in Chicago, USA.
6.3. UNESCO calling young researchers
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=22149&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html [English]
UNESCO is calling on young researchers with advanced degrees (M.A., M.Sc. or equivalent) in developing countries to apply to the UNESCO/Keizo Obuchi Research Fellowship Programme for fellowships ranging from US$ 6,000 to US$ 10,000. The amount varies according to duration and place of study. The deadline for applications to arrive at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris has been set for January 14, 2005. A maximum of two researchers, no older than 40, will be chosen by each National Commission.
6.4. Africa Mobile Phone Users Rally for Women's Rights - "Text Now 4 Women's Rights"
http://www.pambazuka.org/petition [English, French, Kiswahili]
Contrary to the opinion that Africa has yet to take advantage of the information technology explosion, a growing constituency of mobile phone users in Africa is being encouraged to send text messages in support of a petition for women's rights in Africa. Mobile phone users across the world can now send text messages (SMS) from their mobile phones to sign an online petition in support of a campaign urging African governments to ratify the African Union's Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa. You can sending an SMS to +27-832-933934, with the word 'petition' and your name in the message. Senders will be charged the cost set by their network for sending an international SMS. People wishing to subscribe to free SMS alerts can sign up at http://www.pambazuka.org The campaign will run until December. The online petition can be signed at: http://www.pambazuka.org/petition
6.5. Gender and Media Summit for the Southern African region
http://www.genderlinks.org.za/gemsummit/gemsummit-index.htm [English]
From September 12-14, 2004, over 160 people from the Southern Africa region and several observers from around the world participated in the first Southern African Gender and Media Awards and Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. The summit was organised by Gender Links and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) to actively challenge and advocate for gender equality in and through the media. The Summit aims to co-ordinate the formation of a regional network, the Southern African Media and Gender Network.
6.6. Women and ICT Conference held in Arusha
http://www.aitecafrica.com/PastEvents/2004/WomenICT/preamble.htm
Read the report on the Conference Women and ICT: Challenges and Opportunities on the Road to Tunis 2005, held in October 2004 in Arusha. The idea of the workshop was mooted in Geneva during the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in December 2003. The idea was to have an East African regional meeting that would discuss pertinent issues hindering women from accessing ICTs in the region and to come up with action points and identify the actors in society. The conference welcomed delegates from other regions to share experiences and exchange ideas on how best to address the question of women and ICT in Africa. The conference was expected to be a platform for delegates to address issues of policy, networking, education, access and application of ICTs by African women and to include gender considerations.
6.7. Gender and Conflict Transformation: an online learning course.
http://www.netuni.nl/demos/genderconflict
This four-week online course from The Network University will start again at January 24 till February 18, 2005. This course brings together worldwide expertise on the relationship between gender and conflict transformation. This course will empower women to becomekey agents in conflict transformation. The course uses a variety of interactive methods that stimulate thinking and exchange. Specifics aims of the course are to: Develop strategies to overcome gender specific barriers in conflict transformation; Provide inspiring examples; Share experience; Address gender relations; Connect the local and international level; Create a network of gender and conflict experts.
There is a limited amount of scholarships available. For more information and registration please visit our website at http://www.netuni.nl or contact Hanneke Oudkerk at conflict@netuni.uva.nl
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7. Resources
7.1. Gender and ICTs. BRIDGE Cutting Edge Pack - 7, 2004.
http://server.ntd.co.uk/ids/bookshop/details.asp?id=834 [English, Spanish with French coming soon]
The latest Cutting Edge Pack produced by BRIDGE consists of an Overview Report, an In Brief that summarises the issues and a collection of supporting resources. The focus of this Cutting Edge Pack (available for downloading for free at the URL above) is on Gender and ICTs. Issues covered include the relationship between ICTs and gender equality, Gender in the ICTs discourse, changes in gender and ICTs and future directions for engendering the ICT arena.
For paper copies email bookshop@ids.ac.uk
7.2.The implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action
http://www.uneca.org/beijingplus10/ [English, some French]
This website hosted by UNECA brings together resources on the Beijing in Africa process. It includes press releases, news and resources including links to relevant information. The Seventh African Regional Conference on Women Decade Review of the implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 6-14 October 2004.
7.3. New resource on ItrainOnline "Gender and photojournalism in South Africa - A manual for trainers"
http://www.genderlinks.org.za/docs/2003/picture-our-lives/pic-toc.htm [English]
"Picture our Lives", a publication by Gender Links and SAMSO, provides penetrating insight into gender and photojournalism in Southern Africa. Developed by experts and practitioners in the field and targeted at trainers, the manual contains fifty handouts, a wealth of exercises and examples that will be an eye opener to those who make and take images, as well as those who daily consume them. This is an invaluable tool for photojournalists, media training institutions and gender trainers in Southern Africa and further a-field.
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8. World Corner
8.1. Networking for Change and Empowerment - Catalyzing a gender and ICT advocacy Movement.
http://www.apcwomen.org/policy/activities/index.html [English]
The Association for Progressive Communications Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNPS) brought together over 40 participants to the Rio Forum to discuss gender issues in the context of ICT policy processes and practice. The Forum combined experience-sharing, dialogue, networking and skills-building. Debate, analysis, training, capacity building, and access to new tools in a series of five events that ran from June 1st to June 7th.
8.2. Feminist Dialogue now open for applications
http://feministdialogue.isiswomen.org/
http://www.isiswomen.org/fdpm.html
Everyone is invited to join the continuing spirit of women's movements
interlinkages through the upcoming Feminist Dialogue (FD) meeting at the Word Social Forum 2005 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This transnational FD will take place a day before the WSF 2004 from 23 to 25 January 2004. For further information, or to post any questions regarding this
process, please contact: Bina Srinivasan email binasr@eth.net or to Susanna George email susanna@isiswomen.org
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If you have e-mail access, you can get web resources listed in this Newsletter by sending a message to www4mail@kabissa.org with the web address (usually starting with http://) in the body of your message.
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We welcome your opinions about this newsletter. Contributions for publication in French, English and Portuguese and for suggestions and ideas, please email Africa AT apcwomen.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe email africa AT apcwomen.org
Pula is produced by APC-Africa-Women, a project of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
http://www.apc.org
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CopyLeft 2004. APC-Africa-Women (APC). Permission is granted to use this document for personal use, for training and educational publications, and activities by peace, environmental, human rights or development organizations. Please provide an acknowledgment to APC-Africa-Women.
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