Very thorough notes of discussion around using technology to include in a campaign the voices of people directly affected by an issue or project.
Thanks to Lee Webster for the notes.
Using technology to raise the voices of the people affected by the issues we campaign on
Pitfalls of involving beneficiaries – does it work?
- Needs to be meaningful involvement
- Avoid missing link – people giving input but not getting feedback nor seeing improvements in their lives
- Accountability – how to manage people’s expectations when asking them to be involved in campaigns
- Need for good feedback and demonstration of how involvement is making a difference
- Need to acknowledge that being involved in a campaign might not lead to tangible change on the ground for people who have contributed.
- Organisations with good name recognition could give up their brand in order to facilitate conversations, can make themselves invisible.
Part of the aim is to get people to tell their stories to motivate people to take some action with your organisation.
Need to commit to following the journey of people who campaign, don’t abandon them!
Lee (CARE International) went to Uganda and met many women’s rights activists. Local activists appreciated solidarity links, campaigning alongside women’s rights campaigners around the world. But how can we use technology to advance and move this forward?
Use International Women’s Day/global days as a hool – filming individuals etc, sharing what people doing around the world.
Oxfam – Livestreaming – setting up people with broadband, running events with decision makers in west. Bringing people’s voices straight to international decision makers. Planning to do more in next year. Livestreaming out from UN – people from Afghanistan tweeted in questions, UN powerholders were held directly accountable.
Disabled people – disempowered because of lack of access to information, internet etc. Need for training around podcasting, video, etc.
Main downsides – high quality training is very resource intensive.
How do people understand what their information is being used for?
Animation is a great way of having a real voice but with anonymity.
Cool stuff with voice recording – focus efforts on good quality sound then use pictures, focus on hands.
MSF Condition Critical website makes good use of voices.
Digital Voices (Simon Turner, Gloucester) – focused in Wales
Use of long match burning to encourage people to tell their story in a short amount of time. Training for communities in pod/vod casting etc.
Oxfam Afghan Voices petition uses Ipedio. Live phone casting – frees up need for high level technology, people can broadcast what they want. Also worked in Haiti, took satellite phone, and phone blogged.
Built a website to aggregate all information on Haiti, and pushed podcasts out on this. Picked up by mainstream media very quickly.
Exciting thing about phone casting is that all you need is a phone.
Location voice recognition – maps shows where callers are calling in from.
Tilimi – can be downloaded to any computer and iphone app – free version and pro version. Allows you to have your own radio channel. #nextbigthing?
Combination of radio and mobile phones are a powerful medium for supporting activism in southern communities.
Digital divide – needs to be sensitive to appropriate media in countries in which we work – using IPEDIO and forming links with radio in Africa, to give feedback and get views from people in Africa. Potential for this is huge.
Tumblr– for inserting telephone messages into blogs.
Potential for websites to put communities in touch with each other – intereaction.
NGOS being bridges between beneficiaries and those making decisions about them – collecting video testimonies, collecting questions from beneficiaries – and also opportunity for UN officials to ask questions of the beneficiaries in developing countries. It’s a way of tackling the issue that we can’t always bring people to international meetings, but we can set up video conferences etc.
Livestream.com
Tinychat – new site, available for video conferencing.
Cultural boundaries as well as technical boundaries – communities need to understand how new technologies will impact on their lives. Living in a country where whatever you say can backfire on you brings in other considerations.
Round up
- Can we stay in touch around beneficiary involvement?
- Thanks from LCD – this area has a lot of potential – for facilitating conversations between beneficiaries and those with power and those
- We need to raise this issue more – bring it up on forum etc
- Oxfam designing guidelines of managing risk of communication
- Going back to old school technology – radio and phone – is cool!
- Right to focus on tried and tested methods of communication, and then talk about it using new media etc.
- This issue has been discussed in wider community for some time now, great to discuss how technology can enhance this. Let’s keep the conversation going.
Katie Turner – Leonard Cheshire Disability – Work for disability organisation, work directly with disabled activists, interested in how we can use technology to better get the views of disabled people
Lee Webster – CARE International – committed to involving beneficiaries in campaigning, but capacity, funding etc limits options.
Alex Free – Pambazuka news – progressive online space for activists/coimmentators/bloggers in Africa. Weekly publication.
Lisa – Greenpeace International – want to move more towards people affected y campaigns inputting to web content etc. Eg 2009 – working with 4 women affected by climate changes – tried to blog about their experiences of new york, but story was in own countries.
Alan – Church Action On Poverty – keen to start using new media to get the stories amplified of the people affected by issues. So far – limited to case studies, text stories, few youtube videos, blogs by destitute refugees.
Rob Lewis – Rechord – want to hear methods that people use.
Ed Pomfret – conflict and humanitarian programme, risks for staff, and beneficiaries, need to consider this. Project to bring voices from global south – focus on Afghanistan and DRC. Empower local communities to say what they want to say and Oxfam acts as a conduit to power holders.
Janelle Ward – academic interest
Jonathan – Advocacy Online
Virag – Oxfam
Related posts:
