In July of last year I highlighted an organization called IICD (worth a visit if you haven’t see it). IICD has quite a few projects in their database, but this one is of particular interest to me and so I thought I’d share it here.
Summary
From the project page on the IICD website: In the period 2002-2007, the organisation of indigenous people in Bolivia (CIDOB) has used ICT for the gathering of information on land use and land rights to support the lobbying activities. After succesful embedding of computers and the internet into the daily activities of the organisation and its users, a follow-up project is formulated in 2007. The new phase of the project responds to a request of female indigenous leaders of CIDOB at national and regional level to enhance their capacities in Information and Communication Technologie (ICT) and leadership competencies. This to increase their participation in lobbying activities and decision-making processes. Parallel, a national chapter of CIDOB for indigenous women was set up early 2008. This chapter targeted ICT and leadership as one of the pillars of their organisation.
The project focuses on the development of ICT competencies of a core group of 100 indigenous women from all regions to be continuously informed and participate in indigenous and political rights, to be able to gain leadership positions in the organisation at both regional and national level and their direct participation in national policy processes. Learning from earlier experiences, the core group will transfer gained capacities to another 500 indigenous women (1 to 10 ratio).
The project develops the computer and internet skills of the women from all regions so that they can remain continuously informed about, and participate in, the ongoing discussion about indigenous and political rights within their country. With their newly acquired internet skills, the women can use email or Skype to talk to each other, stay informed, and participate in the debate about indigenous and political rights.
The women also learn how to collaborate online by writing in a Blogs, a page or collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content. Indigenous women can use Wikis to write proposals about topics that are related to the rights of indigenous people.
Please visit the full project detail page on the IICD website for more information.
There is quite a bit more there about the project…
