Making IT work for gender justice
29 November 2005
The Cyber Dialogues, piloted during last year's 16 Days of Activism on Gender Violence campaign, are redrawing the map of southern Africa through chat rooms in six languages that cut across regional boundaries.
The Dialogues are taking place daily throughout the campaign, which kicked off on 25 November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) and culminates on International Human Rights Day on December 10.
The chats, which give citizens access to experts and decision-makers, are organised around different themes facilitated by NGOs with expertise in these fields.
People can participate in the discussions anywhere with an internet connection by logging on to the Cyber Dialogues from 13:00 to 14:00 and following instructions to the English, Zulu, Sotho, Creole, Portuguese, kiSwahili, Shona, Afrikaans and Chichewa chat rooms.
Under the banner "Making IT work for gender justice", the Cyber Dialogues are the culmination of training workshops around the region conducted by Gender Links in partnership with the Gender and Media Southern African (Gemsa) network.
"Last year we showed that it is possible to appropriate technologies that often subvert women's rights and turn them to our cause," says Gender Links executive director and Gemsa chair Colleen Lowe Morna. "This year we are using the Cyber Dialogues to make the point that gender violence, and the solutions to it, know no boundaries."
In South Africa, Gender Links and partners in the South African Gender and
Media Network as well as the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) have trained communities in two rural centres in each of the nine provinces. Gender Links has also trained councilors and facilitators in Johannesburg and Msunduzi municipalities that will serve as hubs.
Advocates of gender justice in Swaziland, southern Zimbabwe and large parts of South Africa can talk to each other in the sister languages of isiZulu, siSwati and isiNdebele. Chatters in Lesotho can link up with Sotho speakers in South Africa.
Namibians have the choice of joining the English chat room (the official language in Namibia) or the Afrikaans chat room (the language still spoken by many Namibians) being run out of Cape Town. North-eastern Zambians can join the Chichewa chat room being anchored by the Malawi Institute of Journalism, while Zimbabweans in the country and in the Diaspora have a Shona chat room.
Mauritians and Seychellois can chat away in Creole, while east
Africans and northern Mozambicans can unite in their lingua franca, kiSwahili.
On 1 December (World Aids Day), 3 December (International Day for the Disabled), 6 December (the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre) and 10 December (International Human Rights Day), all regional participants will join in one chat room in English.
In South Africa, participants will be asked to comment on a draft National Action Plan to End Gender Violence that arises from an audit of the commitments made in 2004.
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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