02 December 2011

Women'sNet newsletter

Follow us on Twitter

Follow @WomensnetSA on twitter and retweet our tweets from November 09th to December 9th under the hashtag #Fone4women.

Altrenately you can tweet your own message under the same hashtag #Fone4women. Tweet a message calling for cell-phone donations and create awareness around the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) rights and freedom.

Drop-off points

You may donate your old cellphone by dropping it off at the following venues

Vodacom Shops at the following malls: Eastgate, Southgate, Clearwater & Rosebank
Women'sNet offices, 4th Floor Sci-Bono Discovery Centre, Cnr Miriam Makeba & president Street, Newtown Johannesburg

Make sure you sign a register as you donate.

The idea behind Fone4women campaign

To commemorate 16 days of activism against Violence against Women and internationally recognized Take Back the Tech, Women’sNet is running a campaign and a twitter drive called Fone4Women. The campaign is aimed at getting people to donate their old cell-phones to women and girls victims of violence.

Cell-phone ownership is very high in South Africa even in rural areas amongst the poor, even though it is basic cell phones that are used. One of the first things that the domestic abusers do to their victims is to take away the communication tools – cell-phone! On the other hand victims of violence are reported to be using cell-phones to report their cases or keep evidence of abuse.

The aim of this campaign is to restore the communication and access to information rights of victims of abuse by giving them back tools to communicate. Some survivors of domestic violence have used phones to record their digital stories which have proven to be a powerful tool to share stories and help others heals as they watch and listen to similar experiences. Therefore donating a cell phone will come with more advantages to women and girls.

Women’sNet model rests on three pillars which are:
Information/ content generation linked to networking, capacity building and making ICT accessible to women, especially those that are disadvantaged.

Having access to a better cell phone would also allow women and girls access to the internet to be able to participate in the information age as desktop computer with internet still remain a luxury to the disadvantaged

Brief background Campaigns:

The 16 Days of Activism against Gender Based Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women's Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women's Global Leadership in 1991. Participants chose the dates, November 25, International Day against Violence against Women and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including November 29, International Women Human Rights Defenders Day, December 1, World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre. The Campaign has been used as an organizing strategy by individuals and groups around the world to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women. This year’s theme is Structure of Violence: Defining the Intersections of Militarism and Violence against Women.

Take Back the Tech is a collaborative campaign to reclaim information and communication technologies (ICT) to end violence against women running parallel to the 16 days from November 25 to December 10.The campaign calls on all ICT users (women and men) to take control of technology to protect the right to freedom of expression and information. Since it began in 2006, campaigners in more than 30 countries have strategically used any ICT platform at hand (websites, mobile phones, blogs, podcasts, instant messengers, radio and more to document and fight violence against women.

see: www.takebackthetech.net