Computering seek a gender-sensitive face, via Delhi By Frederick Noronha
BANGALORE, April 24: IT holds out a big promise, but do gender issues figure anywhere in the agenda? An international organisation called the Association for Progressive Communications is planning a workshop in New Delhi to focus just on this front. "We're in Delhi from April 24 to 27 where we working with Datamation Foundation (acting as the local hosts) for organising a GEM (gender-evaluation methodology) training," Cheekay Cinco, Asia-Pacific Coordinator for the APC Women's Networking Support Programme, told this writer. GEM is a guide for ICT (information and communication technology) initiatives that will help them incorporate a gender perspective in their evaluations. Participants for this event -- numbering around 20 -- will be from South and South East Asia. "Most invited organisations have really strong gender programmes, or are really interested in integrating gender in their ICT initiatives", says Ceekay. "So we have a mix of experiences in terms of gender-related work and also a range of types of ICT initiatives." For instance, DNet from Bangladesh, an ICT4D organisation. They run a policy resource centre, and one of their biggest projects Pallituthya help-line project. It uses mobile phones by women to provide information to rural areas in Bangladesh. The Centre for Migrant Advocacy in the Philippines has as one of its current projects, the SMS hotline. The Philippines, as all would know, has a large number of overseas contract workers. This project provides a health-line service to overseas workers by SMS. Their messages are automatically stored in a database, and also automatically forwarded to the Philippine department of foreign affairs, for action. Then, there's SEWA, the Self-Employed Women's Association in Gujarat. "They've recently begun using a lot more mobile telephony in a very practical way. Helping women actually get more familiar with mobile phones to communicate with clients, getting orders and organising themselves," she adds. Some of those participating in the event are telecentres, including M S Swaminathan Research Foundation from South India, and another from Indonesia. ICT-training initiatives like the Cisco Networking Academy based in Pakistan will also be there. "Cisco is one of the largest training initiatives in Asia, and they make sure they train both men and women. In both really hard-core techie stuff to more general ICT skills stuff," says Cheekay. "For about 80% of expected participants, GEM is a new thing for them. But we also make sure to invite initiatives which have worked GEM in the past, but who want to enhance how much they understand it," she says. DNet of Bangladesh, for instance, has used GEM in one of its projects. What are the challenges that someone like Cheekay faces while implementing GEM to a new audience? "The question thta I grapple with most of the time is that a lot of people who are new to gender evaluation, in general, kind of expect that GEM would have quick answers," she says. APC's women's programme started developing GEM in 2001. The first workshops happened in 2002. Says Cheekay: "We've been having workshops at least three times a year, on average, in different levels -- national, regional, international." This regional workshop -- covering parts of Asia -- is the first time one of its kind is being held in India. Besides her, APC's Chat Ramillo of the Philippines and Lenka Simerska from Prague will also be on the organising team. Ajay Rampuri of Datamations, an ICT-for-development group which has been working among poor women in North India, has been doing the logistical support. -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha http://fn.goa-india.org | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ---------------------------------------------------------- More news from South Asia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
