RIGHTS-AFRICA: New Media Bridges Communication Gaps for Activist Groups

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

JOHANNSEBURG, Sep 3 2002 (IPS) - Causes from AIDS awareness to gender equality and human rights have a powerful tool in new Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), felt participants at a conference devoted to new media on the sidelines of the World Summit of Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

ôThere is such a great need to get information to the people who need it, that advocates of human rights, women’s empowerment and AIDS have got to learn the latest technologies to reach their audiences, not to mention the donors who finance NGOs,” said Megan Knight, professor of New Media at the Department of Journalism at Rhodes University, which sponsored the conference called Highway Africa 2002.

The ôhighway” of hi-tech media, however, was not just for the African continent, because this year’s theme, ôBridging the Digital Divide”, covered the predicament of the entire developing world that dramatically lags behind industrialised nations in information technology like the use of computers and the Internet. Knight was the director of the conference, which brought together delegates from many countries.

Kalifa Gadiaga, a delegate from Mali, said the Internet, and even older technologies like fax and videos, meant ôpower” for the people. ôThe more we can teach women about the economic options open to them, the greater will be their degree of economic empowerment. The Internet can empower girls by showing them right on the screen in front of their faces the schools and vocations that await them. A whole world of data at their fingertips,” Gadiaga observed.

No one had any illusions that such technology comes at a price, and must compete with basic needs of developing world citizens like food, clothing and shelter.

But Karen Thorne of Mediaworks, South Africa, feels development needs and information technology go hand in hand. ôTake AIDS, for instance,” she said. ôThere is a desperate need for retroviral drugs to stop the transmission of HIV from pregnant mothers to their babies. Certainly, any health ministry must use its resources to acquire such medication. But a part of health care is communication, and the Internet can instruct clinics and patients if the message is tailored to the recipient, in a local language.”

Rudolph Maziya, the Swaziland representative for the Alliance of Mayors Initiative for Community Action on AIDS on the Local Level (AMICAALL), gave a concrete example of a project that enlists information technology to tackle several causes.

Lavumisa, on the Swazi border with Mozambique, is a busy border post where unemployment is very high, the HIV-infection rate is soaring, and opportunities for young women are non-existent. He said some young people came to his office with a proposal for funding of an Internet café from where people passing through Lavumisa could send emails and use other facilities.

Maziya said, ôAs an AIDS organisation, we see the cafe as a way to provide jobs for some of the women in the village û so they will be economically empowered to say no to boyfriends and sometimes male relatives who demand sex in exchange for financial support. And as a centre where up to date AIDS information is always available, there would be AIDS literature and posters there, and also access to AIDS information web sites.”

For the nearly 10 years that the Internet has been widely available in Africa, human rights groups have used the worldwide web as a way to keep tabs on abuses. Journalists and local people send e-mail reports to global groups like Amnesty International, Reporters Sans Frontiers and the environmentally-oriented World Watch Institute.

ôReports originating from source countries concerning child brides who are virtual sex slaves, or child prostitution, child labour abuses, or the coercion of women to take part in pro-government demonstrations have all been carried on the Internet. They have drawn critical examination from international human rights groups, and in some cases remedial action on the part of national governments,” said Mary Lango of Mozambique.

At the seminar devoted to looking for the best ways to spread information technology in the rural areas, where even electricity supply is problematic, ICT experts suggested community ôportals”, hubs located at chiefs’ residences, post offices, local government centres or other meeting places. There a personal computer, perhaps run by a generator powered by solar panels, would be equipped with Internet access.

A local agent would download information, print it out, and distribute it to groups requiring such knowledge, like AIDS centres, or to groups requesting specific information, like women’s empowerment groups. The ôcommunications specialist” would also read out information to the illiterate for whom a web page is otherwise meaningless.

Another instance of how knowledge obtained from the Internet translates into authentic power came from a representative from Uganda, who told of how women’s groups concerned with income generation for women-headed households û some as young as 15 û have connected them via the web to micro-lending organisations in the United States. The male heads of these families have died of AIDS.

Financing was arranged for small farm infrastructure improvements like the purchase of an irrigation pump or containers to preserve produce enroute to markets for sale. The industriousness of the women ensured they became business entrepreneurs, paid back the loans, and further capitalisation for expansion followed. The ômarriage between need and means” was accomplished over the web.

ôComputer hardware prices are decreasing, computer software is being donated to schools and organisations by Microsoft and others, and training opportunities are growing. Hand in hand with these developments are the AIDS and human rights and women’s rights groups who use this technology to save lives and achieve their goals,” said Lango.