APC Africa Women
Digital stories on VAW featured on Take Back the Tech!
Digital stories prepared by women who document violence against women throughout Africa were launched during the Take Back the Tech campaign. Stories are available online at Take Back the Tech.
Digital stories
Digital Citizens Indaba and Highway Africa
AAW members, many blogging for the first time, provided coverage and a gendered lens at the Digital Citizens Indaba and Highway Africa. Visit the APC Blog for all the details!
Digital Storytelling to End Violence Against Women - Women's Electronic Networking Training 2007
In August we completed yet another WENT workshop, this one on Digital Storytelling. The digital stories developed focussed on the experiences of women who are content developers, librarians, archivists, journalists, mediators, translators, information activists, and who work in the field of ending violence against women. Participants of the workshop took control of technology and told their own stories - using audio, images and storywriting. Share the intensity of the workshop on our WENT blog. AAW host Women's Electronic Network Training (WENT) Africa
every two years
The Harambee Project - Let’s work together
Harambee means "Let's work together". APC-Africa-Women is one of the Focus Networks of the Harambee Project. We are currently busy with an exciting project to increase member participation in the AAW network and consequently increase the benefits of being a member. We are busy creating shared online spaces to enable members to more easily meet, share and collaborate with other members.
The first step is a skills audit to collect member information in relation to what skills exist among our members; what areas of skills and capacity members want to develop.
Other aspects are:
- A story-telling component where we will interview AAW members for their ICT stories.
- Country-based meetings where possible for AAW members who live in cities meet face-to-face and create a social and learning space to promote member interaction.
- Private, interactive and facilitated member spaces on the new (soon to be launched) AAW website using blogs, flickr space etc.
- Members able to upload and update their information on the website (skills, experience, news, activities) which can be accessed by a wider community.
We will introduce AAW members to new online networking tools and facilitate the production of new knowledge through this process and to highlight the creative and innovative uses of ICTs by AAW members.
Coordinator Report
Using cell phones to address violence against women and girls
Women’sNet in partnership with Cell-Life will be hosting a workshop on 13 and 14 October to explore the potential use of cell phones to address violence against women and girls. This workshop is one of the activities of the APC WNSP project on strengthening women’s use of ICTs to combat VAW. VAW activists, communication rights workers, policy makers and regulators are some of the participants who will attend.
Harambee workshop in Kampala
The closing workshop of the knowledge sharing Harambee project took place in Kampala in January. We shared about digital storytelling and hopefully can find a way forward for more Harambee work. It’s been the Harambee project that has allowed us to do all the member interviews and surveys in AAW. Harambee benefitted other organisations in different areas, all focussed on deepening network collaboration using ICTs.
South Africa and online pornography: Bill sets off alarm bells in women's movement
The Bill was drafted by Justice Alliance of South Africa (JASA), an anti-gay, anti-choice organisation. The countries mentioned by JASA as having enacted similar legislation to the proposal Bill – Yemen and the United Arab Emirates – both censor LGBT as well as political content that they deem undesirable.
Taking into consideration the social context within which laws operate in South Africa, where violence against lesbian women and transgender people is common, “a law focusing on sexual content is likely to see content that focuses on lesbian sexuality or even women’s sexuality as deviant and undesirable” says Shackleton.
“The Law Reform Commission in South Africa, tasked with investigating internet pornography should consider freeing up funds from the Universal Access Fund to promote positive content by women and for women,” says Shackleton. “That way we tip the balance of content in favour of more positive representations of women and more diversity.”
“The Law Reform Commission’s investigation at the very least must be framed by considering that children and women are not the same entity. Children are a separate category of people that require very different legislative approaches than those addressing women,” Shackleton concludes.
Student Googles herself to an international award
Shikoh Gitau, a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science, has bagged the prestigious Google Anita Borg Memorial Award for 2010, the first recipient from sub-Saharan Africa.
The award is given to female students who show exceptional academic and leadership skills in computing and technology. The award carries a cash prize and a visit to Google’s Engineering Centre in Zurich for a networking retreat.
