Session Ten | Oct 6
SESSION TITLE
Social and communal sustainability, weaving community tech and wisdom in CN advocacy: the leading role of women
About the Mentors
Kemly Camacho
Kemly is co-founder and current general coordinator of the Sulá Batsú Cooperative, a self-managed associative company that works on the issue of digital technologies for local development and that in turn encourages, supports and promotes the development of technology-based collaborative ventures aimed at solving social problems.
Kemly is a computer engineer, anthropologist and has a master's degree in knowledge society and another in evaluation of development programs and projects. For the last 20 years she has combined her training to work on the issues she is most passionate about, such as the social impact of digital technologies, the approach of technological tools to populations with greater vulnerabilities and the development of local spaces with fewer opportunities through the integration of technology.
During all these years, she has specialized in the social impact of information and communication technologies in society and has belonged to different global research teams working on this topic: University of Toronto, Tascha (U of Washigton), (IDPM) U. of Manchester, IKMe Project, IDS of the University of Sussex, Mystic Community, among others.
In recent years she has been dedicated to promoting and strengthening women's participation in the digital sectors and promoting diversity in this economic sector. She leads the TIC-as Program that works in the creation of rural technology poles with female leadership at the Central American level and that promotes technology-based women's entrepreneurship and the creation of technology from the vision of women. From these spaces, she strengthens women's leadership in the digital sectors, technical skills and women's collective entrepreneurship in the ICT sector.
Luisa Perreira
Luisa Bagope is a documentary director interested in the wide spectrum of technology and how it relates to community. Luisa graduated in Communication Studies and started her career in filmmaking in São Paulo where she was born. She has been working in the area since 2010 in various social projects and debuted as a director with the short film about food waste in Brazil called "Insustentável”. Luisa moved from her hometown São Paulo to the Mantiqueira Mountains of São Paulo in 2017, passing through São Bento do Sapucaí, Santo Antônio do Pinhal and settling in Monteiro Lobato. In this region she continues working actively with documentary records of various artistic expressions of the territory. With
support from APC she has also been documenting community network activities in the global South. An active participant of Portal Sem Porteiras Community Network (PSP) for 3 years, Luisa coordinated alongside Marcela Guerra the Nodes That Bond project. The project held a collective learning process centered around technology that happened through circular encounters amongst women and activated the
local server of the neighborhood by creating and hosting on it a map of women in the territory. "Nodes That Bond” resulted in the publication of a book, with versions in Portuguese, English and Spanish, which can be accessed here:
https://portalsemporteiras.github.io/en/nos-por-nos/2019/
In the year 2020 the continuity plans of "Nodes that Bond“ were changed to adapt to the pandemic situation. It was then that Luisa and Marcela started to work in a new way. To overcome the fragmentation imposed by social isolation they started audio productions, aiming to keep alive the discussions brought up in the women's circles of the previous year. Thus was created the "Nodecast", a series of podcasts that talks about community networks and territory. With 6 episodes between 20 and 40 minutes long, the series counts with the participation of several residents, invited to share perceptions and express their opinions. The result was very well received by the community, which felt listened to and could
contemplate the diversity present in the social fabric of the territory. The episodes can be heard here: https://portalsemporteiras.github.io/en/nos-por-nos/nodecast/
Next, Luisa and Marcela set themselves a new challenge. Using the accessible technology of audio, they created a fictional narrative set in the Souza neighborhood. "The Secret of the Mountain" tells a story freely inspired by the accounts of women from the territory through fictional characters. The script was created by Luisa Pereira, Marcela Guerra, and Lia Aroeira, and then the voices were recorded by the community itself. The Audionovella has 6 chapters and was launched at the end of 2020 causing a stir and interest among the local residents, who said they felt identified with the narrative. Focusing on feminist methods of community-based organization she now continues to work with communication as potency for social transformation in the Afluentes Association, in Monteiro Lobato,Brasil. Her documentation impulses register manifestations that aim to reshape the way we approach technology, environment and community. In her free time Luisa enjoys being out in the open in the Mantiqueira Forest where she lives, developing sovereignty by planting and studying the natural world alongside other women.
ABOUT THE SESSION
In this session you can expect to leave the room with the below takeaways:
- to go over models of social sustainability
- local solutions and how to advocate for them
- engaging women in the communities for sustainability
Structure
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Introductions (5 minutes)
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Group Exercise 1: (30-40 minutes)
Exercise 1:
A. What social and communal dynamics help with the sustainability of your own Community Network experience?
B. Take a minute, share your stories and reflect on your experiences to point out what is important about the relationship between community-technology-sustainability.
Exchange experiences in the group and place words or phrases in the padlet.
https://padlet.com/lubagope/ku4eka9zrgw117ca
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Case Presentations
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Plenary Discussion
What do you see in common between the 2 stories about the role of women in the relationship sustainability-technology-community?
Plenary - open discussion
Padlet: https://padlet.com/lubagope/pd7lxan8gc46fk1a
- Closing Remarks
Resources
ENGLISH VERSION: https://portalsemporteiras.github.io/en/assets/documentos/workbook-nodes-that-bond.pdf
SPANISH VERSION: https://portalsemporteiras.github.io/es/assets/documentos/apostila-nos-por-nos-esp.pdf