Picture courtesy of Take back the Tech
A campaign called Take Back the Tech aims to reclaim “Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to End Violence Against Women,” as well as continuing the battle against AIDS. This is one of the many initiatives across the globe that are encouraging women not to be afraid of technologies and through education [es] on how to use it to improve their lives. Today more than ever, it is important for women and girls to use technologies to improve their lives, especially in Central America.
Women in this region often make the headlines, but not for the reasons that one would like to read in the news. Instead, their news are about gender violence, extreme poverty, lack of opportunities, malnutrition, high mortality rates even gendercide. In spite of this, there are amazing women from all the region, who write primarily about technology and who try to make a difference in the lives of women.
Sweetsakura [es] not only is a software expert, she is also a supporter of free software, sharing information and tips on her blog about software, hardware and Ubuntu from El Salvador.
From Honduras, Librecaos [es]shares with her community the importance of software in local languages and celebrates that they finally have Ubuntu, an operative system, localized in Miskito, an indigenous language of Central America. She commemorated the recent International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and recalled some experiences:
En esto días recuerdo más cuando empezaba a trabajar y me tocada hacer transcripciones de cassetes, todos eran talleres con mujeres hablando sobre sus experiencias, no podía evitar conmocionarme al oir como sus esposos las golpeaban, oirlas llorar cuando aseguraban que podían trabajar porque “No tenian permiso de su marido”, o peor escuchar como las usaban como si fueran muqueñas para sexo, y luego las dejaban.
During these days, I begin to recall the time when I started to work and when I had to transcribe cassettes of workshops where women spoke about their experiences, and I could not help but be moved when I heard how their husbands hit them, heard them cry when they were not able to work because “they did not have permission from her husband,” or worse hear how they were used as dolls for sex, and later they were left.
Vinculación [es] by Ivonne Aldana from Guatemala, is quite impressive. She discusses new inventions, new models and designs, ICT clusters and the importance of development scientists. La Piensa Libre [es], from Costa Rica writes with charm about technology, among other important issues, since it cannot be isolated from society, the environment and others.
Women literacy and improving education for girls can contribute to solve major problems by providing access to reproductive health information to prevent diseases, for example. Hopefully Central American women will increase in number of users of technology, producers and policy makers!
6 comments
In the region where we live is very important the level of technological knowdledge that women can take for 2 reasons: Woman is the base of the family, if woman have a good level of technological skills it will be projected to their childs and they will have better oportunities. In this society were some people think that men should have better oprtunities than women, this kind of articules show the potential that women can have.
Congratulations to these women who help their comunity and try to make a better world.
Justo for reference. You can find the video of the research Vinculación [es] by Ivonne Aldana from Guatemala in this links:
Part 1 of 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzZodpksFvY
Part 2 of 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH8S8mpIZAU
Women have to prove themselves to society, at least in Guatemala the oportunities for women working with ICT are quite lower than for men, however I believe that as women get interested in these issues and not only interested but involved, the oportunities are going to be more and more… nowadays I’ve noticed that women are more interested in being part of the world from a technology perspective, using blogs to express themselves is a very significant first step. I appreciate that you mention our work at vinvulacion.wordpress.com, Ana Luisa Chután and me are working on develope our proyect to help our country to develope by using technology, we are involved in a organization that promotes the use of technology (http://www.fundatics.org) in Guatemala, most of the people that integrate this organization are men, but I think that by being acknowledge by this organization we are making a difference for women in our country.