DigiActive.org

Tactic: “Cyberela” bridges digital divide

Description: As activists around the world celebrated International Women’s Day this week, this is a great opportunity to highlight the progress and barriers women and girls still face around the world. In the tech world, women are still disproportionately affected by the digital divide – the lack of economic and educational opportunities to access the Internet and other communication tools. However, there are many organizations around the world that are charged to close the gap. One group is using new media along with radio to do this.

Digital Tools Being Used: Podcasts

What Are They Doing: Brazilian nonprofit Communication, Education and Information on Gender (CEMINA) was founded in 1988 to educate poor women how to create and produce their own radio shows. The organization also works with local community radio stations across Brazil to run “telecenters,” where both women and men can learn various Internet tools. In 1999 CEMINA started “Cyberela,” an initiative that identifies enterprising women to create their own radio programming and upload them online. The radio programs are geared towards other women in their communities who feel empowered by the discussion topics such as education, agriculture and health care, which give way to spark action.

DigiActive training for women’s associations

Trainers Mary (standing) and Zineb (front seat on the right) with association members in Rabat.

On Tuesday, DigiActive conducted a training for Moroccan women’s rights associations.  The training, organized by the international human rights organization Global Rights, sought to give these associations new tools for their lobbying campaign in support of a domestic violence law in Morocco.   

The half-day training covered digital strategy for using blogs, video,  social networks, and mobile phones in campaining and was lead by DigiActive co-founder Mary Joyce and a local Moroccan trainer, Lalla Zineb El Alaoui, who led a presentation on how to use Facebook for activism.  

The training was giving using simultaneous English-Arabic translation, thus the head sets.  Mary presented in English, and Zineb in Arabic, with Powerpoint slides in French (Morocco’s second language). At DigiActive, we roll international.

Tactic: Saudi Activist Uses Youtube to Advocate for Womens’ Right to Drive…

Description: On International Women’s Rights day, a video of a woman in Saudi Arabia defying the country’s ban on female drivers in urban areas was posted on the video-sharing site YouTube. At the wheel of her car, rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider, describes the injustice and appeals to the Saudi Government to expand women’s rights in the country and lift the ban.

Organizer: Human Rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider. 125 other people signed an accompanying petition that was delivered to the Saudi Ministry of interior that same day.

Purpose of Action: To celebrate International Women’s Rights day and call for the lifting of the ban on female drivers in Saudi Arabia.

Organizing Tools: The video was uploaded to and posted on the video-sharing site Youtube.com

Outcome: The story was picked up by all major international news organizations which has helped to widely publicize the action. Bloggers around the world have also helped amplify the message by writing on the story and posting links to the video, which has so far been viewed more than 120,000 times.

Link to Video with English dubbing