Technology Tools to Empower Grassroots Advocates
by My Tam Nguyen (volunteer & photographer)
- Cheryl Coon, Moderator, Social Security Disability Lawyer, Coon Family Foundation
- Bern Johnson. Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide
- Emily Jacobi, Digital Democracy
Using technology to document cases of rape after the earthquake in Haiti, leveraging a private and public digital listserv to bring together a global network of grassroots environmental lawyers, the powerful role of technology in shaping the political, social, cultural and personal landscape in development work is discussed in this workshop. Cheryl Coon, moderates how technology works within the scope of the Coon Family Foundation, and why she is attracted to giving to appropriate technology.
Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (ELAW) has a digital network of grassroots environmental lawyers in 70 countries working out of communities at the nexus of human rights and the environment. ELAW’s Executive Director, Bern Johnson cites the international network of lawyers fight for public health and human rights issues who come to the table with the commitment, skills, passion to do the work, though often times they lack the legal, scientific and information resources to be more effective. That is where ELAW comes in, using their digital platform, users can seek answers, solutions, resources, potential partners to help these community based advocates successfully complete their projects.
In Panama, Nikolas Sanchez Esino uses ELAW to work with El Centro de Incidencia Ambiental (Environmental Advocacy Center) Protecting Marine Ecosystems in Panama. Esino uses the Listserv to post information and news on, to get assistance and interact with other users, and to share ideas. The lists are maintained in both English and Spanish. ELAW believes in horizontal collaboration, Nikolas heard from eight countries in a few days. Their work is demand driven, based on horizontal collaboration, not reinventing the wheel. ELAW focuses on what’s fast, free, bilingual with human links and connections for its users.
In India, ELAW helps a project with the DEIA (Draft Environmental Assessment Report) for proposed 3.0 MPTA Cement Plant at Mandi District in India. They were not able to travel to the site, so using Google Maps, they were able to get forestry density date to assist with the DEIA work request.
In the Peruvian Amazon, the local community works to clean up the Rio Corrientes a very polluted river. The environmental advocates there didn’t have scientific data to establish proof of contamination to get relief. ELAW devised a basic low cost system, travelling by dugout canoe they worked with the local community to take water samples from the polluted water, it was sent to a lab in Peru where the water samples were studied. The testing results were sent to ELAW, scientists from ELAW sent back the assessment to Peru, showing the quality of the water did not meet World Health Organization and the EPA standards.
Working from the bottom up, Emily Jacobi the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Digital Democracy came from the youth journalism movement. .She started out working on peace building, human rights, and international development at the Thai/Burmese border.During her research she saw that even in the most rural areas, the local population still had access to mobile phone, and the internet. Those who had access to the internet and self identified as political activism, as a part of larger movement for justice and democracy in their country. Then the Saffron Uprising happened, which were led by students. With a hundred thousand people, monks using the internet in their monasteries to research the principles of nonviolence and utilizing mobile phones to mobilize.
Burma, a country isolated for a long time became front page news. The government responded with violence. The initial violent crackdown was unsuccessful. Then, the government shut off cell phone and internet for five days. By doing this, they were able to squash protest. This is an example of the dangers and opportunities of technology, those with new access to it have the most to lose and most to gain. Jacobi had a desire to support her friends who were protesting in Burma, to help them harness tech in ways to do their digital community organizing work better, and to protect them.
Digital Democracy is based in NYC, though their work has ripples globally. Jacobi shows a map of countries during her presentation where a Digital Democracy sticker could make a citizen liable to jail or search by the police. Focusing on three areas: digital literacy, digital organizing, and digital governance, they partner with tech companies and grassroots organizations to .strengthen tech communities and grassroot groups. They use open source technology when where possible, Digital Democracy discovered that free tech is more sustainable for grassroots organizations with limited budgets. Jacobi states that there is an Inherent transparency in code, when users learn coding and are able to look at source code, helps them to develop that trust in the application.
Noting security issues in using traditional technology venues like social media and cell phones, Digital Democracy also help educate the dangers activists take by undergoing normal venues of technology. Digital Democracy’s work sometimes take the form of responding to a crisis or emergency, they have received press and notable recognition for their work to document rape cases post-earthquake in Haiti. They’ve also use Ushahadi, a site made by developers in Kenya, from their website:
“Ushahidi”, which means “testimony” in Swahili, was a website that was initially developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. Since then, the name “Ushahidi” has come to represent the people behind the “Ushahidi Platform”. Our roots are in the collaboration of Kenyan citizen journalists during a time of crisis. The original website was used to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phones. This website had 45,000 users in Kenya, and was the catalyst for us realizing there was a need for a platform based on it, which could be used by others around the world.
Jacobi and her team utilized the free and open source software for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping to record the numbers of human rights violations in Burma during the the protests. The big question, according to Jacobi, is how to utilize these tools to transition from immediate response to long-term reconstruction.
Both ELAW and Digital Democracy cite challenges in language barriers and access to technology. ELAW has worked on lowering the language challenge by bringing the advocates they work with to the U.S. for an eight week intensive English program. Digital Democracy has worked with organisations who rather write out their language to quicken up the communication process.
On women and access to technology, both note the digital divide. Jacobi recalls after the Haiti earthquake, 83 percent of men had mobile access versus 76 percent of women. She sees opportunities, and is passionate about helping women access tools to enable their voices. Johnson says the majority of people in the ELAW network are women, in some countries, all are women in the ELAW network.
In technology access, opportunities, barriers, solutions, both ELAW and Digital Democracy have found ways to serve their indented target communities. Both focus on the real human interaction and depends on pulling from the rich resources of partnering organizations and individuals for the success of their programming. Some of the resources come in the form of open source software for marginalized global communities, others, in the form of scientific evidence to provide and protect evidential proof to preserve a healthy unpolluted environment for communities to live in. In a global digitally connected world, these organizations have found ways to truly connect and provide resources for those who’ve traditionally most disconnected and marginalized.
Ndana Tawamba, based in Harare, Zimbabwe, serves as the CEO/Executive Director at Urgent Action Fund-Africa (UAF), the continent’s only rapid response foundation. Focused on the needs of women human rights defenders, UAF responds to urgent crises and opportunities by making grants in conflict zones all over Africa.
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