Sudafrica: software libero dalle donne per le donne

[Mario Mure]

Fonte: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=26360

The first "free software" workshop run for women by women in the world?
Southern African women do it!

photo JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- "The 1st SADC FOSS Workshop is a
long overdue exercise for African women, creating awareness about free
and open software (FOSS), and training how to use the FOSS tools. There
is no more reason to remain frustrated about the digital divide. The
introduction of FOSS had been successful, and I can wait to integrate
FOSS when I get back. FOSS can be thought of the 'new' Digital Unite.
Indeed fascinatingly AWESOME!"
[Workshop participant]

Splicing cables, partitioning hard drives, developing technology plans
and sharing stories of activism set the scene for a lively and full 5
days 1st Southern African Development Community (SADC) FOSS workshop to
be held. And as far as we know, the first FOSS workshop for women in
the world. Women holding their breath as their hand-made cables were
tested, groups debating how gender and ICT policy issues affected their
work, sharing stories of unstable access to the internet and whether
VSAT was more cost effective than dial-up - were some of the many
activities which happened at the Women'sNet offices in Johannesburg
form the 6-10 September.

The workshop also inducted the new FOSS walk-in internet café recently
set up in the Women'sNet offices. The computers were brand-new and the
surfaces of the desks still shiny. The internet café was full of women
from the SADC Community, including participants from Kenya and Uganda,
learning how to use Content Management Systems, contribute to blogs and
of course during lunch-breaks, check their email!

Women'sNet, a non-profit women's organisation based in Johannesburg,
hosted the workshop to build awareness of and demonstrate the potential
of Free and Open Source Solutions (FOSS) in the non-profit sector, and
women's organisations specifically. The event was organised by
Women'sNet, with inputs from APC Women's Networking Support Programme
(APC WNSP), APC-Africa-Women (the regional network of APC WNSP),
Meraka, and Ungana-Afrika. The event was sponsored by the Open Society
Initiative Southern Africa (OSISA) and the Information Programme of
Open Society Institute (Hungary).

Why FOSS?

Women'sNet believes that being able to use information technology
strategically and effectively is an important source of empowerment and
skills development for women who often feel isolated and disempowered
by rapidly advancing technological change. At the same time, there is
growing awareness of the potential role of free/open source software
(FOSS) in particular in harnessing ICTs for socio-economic development.

Among the potential benefits of FOSS are:
* Open source software is royalty- and license free, which means that
the cost of acquiring the software is lower than that of proprietary
software.
* Because the source code is accessible, open source software can be
modified to meet the needs of users in particular contexts and
languages.
* Users are not trapped into ongoing dependency on a particular vendor
for upgrades and support.
* The collaborative open source model of software development offers
greater opportunities for local skills and economic development.
* Some free software is recognized as more stable and more secure than
its proprietary counterparts.
* Open source software is often less demanding on hardware resources
than proprietary software, and can help break the cycle of constantly
needing to upgrade hardware to accommodate "software bloat".

Some background and synergies

A panel discussion hosted by APC-Africa-Women at the WSIS Summit in
Geneva in December 2003 on "Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) - The
potential power and possibilities for women's organisations and
networks" stimulated discussion and interest amongst women's
organisations about exploring FOSS. It was agreed that a hands-on
workshop was needed. The idea was to stimulate awareness and adoption
of free and open software source (FOSS) solutions among women's
organisations in the region and to deepen understanding and skills
among women technicians in providing technical support to women's
organisations. This in order to provide an ability to assess, adopt and
effectively use FOSS applications within women's organisations. These
became the two overall objectives of the workshop.

This was also undertaken with an awareness what women are often the
last to benefit from new developments in the ICT sector.

The global support among the APC Women's Networking Support Programme
enabled two women to travel from the Philippines and the United Kingdom
to train and to learn from what we believe to be the first workshop to
be held on FOSS for women. The idea was to expand the experience beyond
SADC and Africa and enable this model to be adapted and adopted in
other regions.

Purpose of the workshop

With the exception of certain Internet-related tools, open source
software is not yet widely used in Africa, and there have been no
initiatives aimed specifically at using open source to support women's
organizations and networks. In order to realize the potential of open
source software it is necessary to

* Raise awareness of open source tools at a variety of levels: policy,
management, technical staff and end-users.
* Provide easy access to open source tools.
* Develop skills among end-users, technical staff and potential open
source developers.
* Ensure the ongoing development of support and training materials.
* Develop capacity for planning and decision-making around implementing
open source solutions, including an awareness of factors such as total
cost of ownership.

The structure of the workshop:

The workshop was run over 5 days and was structured into two parallel
tracks, with some overlapping sessions.

Track 1 participants and facilitators shared technical skills and
experiences, discussed key challenges in realizing FOSS projects, and
develop concrete strategies for supporting women's NGOs in their
technology decision-making processes and effectively integrating ICT
into their operations and future plans. This targeted young women
computer technicians - mainly technical support staff and system
administrators - to build their capacity to support women's
organisations in their assessments of technical hardware- and
software-related needs and, where required, in migrating to and
implementing FOSS solutions.

Track 2 targeted decision-makers and end-users in women's
organisations, with a view to building their ability to assess and
choose between different technical (especially software) solutions.
This track demonstrated the use of some FOSS software solutions that
facilitate web publishing and information-sharing, illustrated the ease
with which women's organisations can maintain their a web site - e.g.
by pooling content and collaborative online publishing - at the
regional level, using only basic word processing skills.

The glue that held that tracks and participants together was a
commitment to gender equality and an involvement in the women's
movement. Participants work in arenas from HIV/AIDs information
dissemination, preventing violence against women, involvement in
SchoolNets and a teacher responsible for ICT training in her school.
The belief that using ICTs strategically in their work enabled a more
effective advocacy and networking was a consistent theme. Applying
technical competencies to activism and sharing skills and knowledge
made for a dynamic and exciting workshop. Making the ideologies behind
FOSS real and applicable to the women's movement was one of the
achievements of the workshop.

The Future

A mailing list has been activated to keep participants in touch with
each other and enable sharing of resources, tools and stories on FOSS.
The "techies" were particularly keen to ensure that follow-up happens
including a system administrators workshop. There are plans to
replicate the workshop at a pan-African level and other regions are
developing plans for similar workshops. All participants left with a
CD-Rom of all materials and many FOSS tools as well as the knowledge
that African women are successfully challenging digital and technical
exclusions.

"It's great to have female role models and trainers who are on their
way to becoming techies. It is easy to remain at the word processing
level because that is what you use everyday. Sometimes you hear these
techno words and don't even bother to find out what they mean because
the technician (usually male) is there to take care of the problems.
What dependency! After this there is no more excuse. There is no rocket
science involved in using technology more effectively."
"It feels so good to be among women who realise the benefits and
usefulness of ICTs and hopefully by the end of workshop FOSS. It's a
cool cool feeling (makes me smile all the way to bed). I have had a lot
of experiences (good and bad) in using ICTs for development and its
gives me hope to see so many women in one place talking technology and
I must appreciate that I'm learning new things everyday. It's also
interesting to note that ICTs offer a means to innovative programming,
having heard about the interventions in Mozambique from Lucilia it
gives me hope that my dream is slowly becoming a reality. I have dreamt
that women and children and everyone else can access important
information at the click of a button.

Read more about the workshop
http://www.womensnet.org.za/FOSS/Index.html

For stories and technology plans developed by the participants go to
the blog http://womensnet-foss.blogspot.com/

Originator: --- (APC-Africa-Women)
Date: 10/01/2004
Location: JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
Contact:
Category: Women and ICTs
Source: APC-Africa-Women

-- 
 <@,@>  Il corpo del povero cadrebbe subito in pezzi
 [`-']  se non fosse legato ben stretto dal filo dei sogni
 -"-"-                                --Anonimo indiano