Association for Progressive Communications

Reports indicate that violence against women (VAW) is still very much present in today’s society – one out of three women worldwide suffers from some form of gender-based violence. As part of the global campaign on “Say NO to violence against women”, APC member the Open Institute in Cambodia conducted three forums on “Reclaiming ICT to end violence against women” held from September to December 2008. Through these forums, they were able to uncover key challenges in the use of ICTs to end violence against women, and put forth a series of pertinent recommendations to be implemented in Cambodia as part of the country’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Late 2008, Open Spectrum Australia (a kind of ‘think tank’ for community media) decided to bring together community media groups from both platforms to discuss the issue of media convergence. In order to provide a focus for the day, we came up with an information rights ‘campaign’ of our own and asked for feedback. This article reports on outcomes of the symposium, Quality/Control .

Innovative micro-docs series produced by apc.au / Toy Satellite in association with Rengah Sarawak seeks support towards its completion. Sarawak Gone explores four remote Bidayuh communities accessible by foot within an hour’s drive from Kuching, capital city of Sarawak, Malaysia.

Back in 2007, when APC members and staff got together to translate and print the APC internet rights charter in twenty languages, campaigners in Asian countries in particular pointed out that information about information and communications technologies (ICT) is usually only available in English. “In Pakistan, not even the government provides basic ICT policy information in Urdu,” Bytes for All’s Shahzad Ahmad told APC. Now APC’s latest annual report is available in Urdu, a language spoken by 265 million people. Shahzad Ahmad talked to APCNews about the importance of this publication in his part of the world.

APC member Open Institute in Cambodia was recently involved in a forum dedicated to ending violence against women. The “Women Forums on reclaiming ICTs to end violence against women” was held on December 26th and united over 120 individuals from the government and non-profit sector. Together, they discussed the vital role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in helping build awareness regarding violence against women.

Video, native title and the internet provides outlet for communities affected by the development of the second of twelve dams proposed for Sarawak, the second largest state of Malaysia on the island of Borneo.

“I am leaving Hyderabad tomorrow with a longer list of friends, but I know that philosophy of connecting people goes far beyond having the added names in the list. It has a deeper philosophy: connecting people for bringing changes into their lives.” The APC Women’s Networking Support Programme (WNSP) sponsored Dr. Anupama Saxena to attend this year’s Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad India. Throughout the event, she wrote about her thoughts on this global meeting and process from the perspective of a woman researcher from a small project in India. She now shares her thoughts and personal experience at the IGF.

The 1990s witnessed the exponential growth of online communication and simultaneously experienced its widespread impacts on all aspects of human activities. Worldwide progressive social movements recognised the potential of online communication and started using it as a networking tool for furthering their causes. APC member in South Korea, Jinbonet, was to see the flashpoint for their own birth in 1997, during a general strike, which “showed that computer networks could play a useful organising role across borders for each sector of the movement,” says Byoung-il of Jinbonet in an interview with APCNews to commemorate the organisation’s tenth anniversary.

Congratulations to APC member Jinbonet of Korea, who will be celebrating its 10th anniversary on November 14th. As innovators of ICT for social justice, Jinbonet has been a leader in its commitment to social rights, gender equality, use of free and open source software (FOSS), and has been an integral part of APC’s work in Asia and at large. APC has learnt so much from this truly dedicated and steadfast organisation, and will continue to do so.

APC partner Tactical Tech, an international NGO that helps activists use information and ICTs to increase their impact, are currently accepting applications for the first international camp on info-activism. The Info-Activism Camp, a seven-day event will take place from February 19 – 25 2009 in Bangalore India. As the first meet-up of this type, participants will learn and share advocacy techniques using ICTs through workshops, group discussions, interactive sessions and live demos.

The National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women employed the technical know-how of “WomensH

APC welcomes its new Cambodian member, Open Institute. “We see ourselves as facilitators,” explained Chim Manavy, executive director of the start-up NGO. “We facilitate communication, knowledge-sharing and gender equity through the strategic use of ICT and of the Khmer language”. What this means on the ground, is easy to understand when one takes a look at the track record of OI’s colleagues.

The OECD ministerial meeting on “the Future of the Internet Economy” is being held in Seoul, Korea from June 17th to 18th. The Korean government seems to use this meeting as an opportunity to show off its advances of the Internet technology. However, no one would call a nation a ‘leading country of the Internet’ solely on its strong information technology base and IT industries. We hope this meeting would be a chance for the Korean government to recognize and feel embarrassed for its information and communication policies, including Internet policies, which violate many human-rights and is lagging behind. Read APC member in Korea, Jinbonet’s press release.

APC member apc.au releases ten years of essays, lectures, reports and articles dealing with information communication technologies for cultural development to celebrate Document Freedom Day 2008

A two-day training was held by VOICE on March 18th and 19th 2008 in Dhaka on information and communication technologies (ICTs). Online media and communication such as blogs and digital photography were expored. The creation, editing, optimisation and transferral of media for the web were of prime interest to the participants from non-profit organisations.

The Open Institute – a Cambodian NGO – launched a Khmer language web portal on October 24 2007. It will give non-profits, the government, and other organisations working on women’s issues in Cambodia easy access to legislation and latest developments related to women’s issues.

NepaLinux, an initiative to create a localised GNU/Linux distribution in the Nepali language, has been chosen as a joint-winner of the first APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize, by an international jury. APC-member BytesForAll co-founder and journalist Frederick “FN” Noronha interviews NepaLinux’s Bal Krishna Bal, who explains the project’s relevance to FOSS local language computing solutions in Nepal, the challenges their project faced, why he carries on confidently, and his vision of the future.

Other voices: The struggle for community radio in India, by two University of Hyderabad scholars, has just been published by Sage. BytesForAll’s Frederick Noronha interviews the authors of the book: Vinod Pavarala, Professor of Communication and Dean of the Sarojini Naidu School of Communication, University of Hyderabad, and Dr Kanchan K Malik, a lecturer at the university.