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📍Documentation

Nov 22 | SESSION 15 — Leading and co-shaping strategies

In this penultimate session of SPACE 2021, participants were invited to share the things they enjoy and what they are good at, and recall the highlights and best learning moments of the programme throughout the past 7 weeks.In preparation for the November 26 session where the participants will be presenting their advocacy strategy in groups, they were then divided into three affinity groups of their choice: gender and language, spectrum advocacy, and USF and regulation. They got to discuss within their groups in 45 minutes, and were free to arrange their own discussion sessions prior to the November 26 presentation through their own means — telegram groups, etc.

Key highlights from the discussions:

  1. On the issues of spectrum, there is a good opportunity to campaign for issues from the grassroots level as the issues and purposes are similar globally and locally across communities, although regulations could be different.
  2. Indigenious community networks can also start their spectrum advocacy campaign within the lens of retaining the rights to land, sovereignty, and self-determination.
  3. Analogies are one of the good ways of understanding technical topics. E.g. properties and houses are like licensed spectrum, but parks are like unlicensed spectrum where everyone can be in the space and create their own rules if there is not any.
  4. On gender and language, it is important to focus on social inclusion and create spaces for women to be able to address their grievances and find support among each other within CN.
  5. We need to think about how to take a multistakeholder approach to enable a holistic approach because connectivity alone is not enough.

Nov 26 | SESSION 16 — Presenting strategies

In this final session of the SPACE mentorship programme, participants were invited to present their advocacy strategy plan based on the affinity groups chosen the previous week. The two groups were Group 1: Gender and Language, and Group 2: USF and regulation.

Group 1: Gender and Language

  1. Advancing language on gender and inclusion: spaces should allow individuals to designate their own choice on pronouns and names or nicknames that they feel comfortable with, discard the usage of ‘guys’ to address people in the room, use empowering language to include women + gender diverse people + trans people + PWD
  2. Creating more spaces for women: More spaces for women to learn about tech skills, create more mentally safe spaces alongside physical spaces, create financial spaces and grants whereby women are able to extend what they learned beyond training and able to make a living out of the skills and funding.
  3. Localise and simplify the content to the context: It is not enough that a law or policy was passed, it needs to be able to be contextualised to the local contexts so it would be able to reach the people in the areas impacted e.g. the case of COVID-19 isolation order passed in India, many villages in the remote region do not understand what isolation means and what it entails because it is not contextualised to them. If we have to talk about policy to expect at this localisation of the context, it would be one document that suggests acts, laws, or regulation and benefits of provisions in the way that local language is embedded.
  4. Women and gender diverse people being able to speak and vocalise without feeling inferior/marginalised: What does it mean to have safe spaces for women and gender diverse people? Create also mental safe space and surroundings for women so they are free from violence and able to participate. Call out cyberbullying and harassment in online spaces, and create allies.
  5. Creating a gender inclusive + gender neutral culture: Use empowering language inclusive to women, trans people and PWD. 
  6. Stakeholders would include all levels from local, national, regional, and international — covering diplomats, community networks, local governments and media.

Group 2: USF and Regulation

  1. Objective: To advocate for the effective/equitable/transparent management and allocation of USF, to ensure that people are connected to realise their aspirations (social, economic, political, etc.) and exercise the rights protected by Article 19.
  2. Action plan: Through community-first approach and knowledge sharing and exchange in understanding current practices and gaps in the USF, research, stakeholder mapping, raising awareness and community interest, and creating and participating in forums.
  3. Stakeholders include networks such as APC, ISOC, and ITU, and bodies such as mobile operators, communities, human rights organisations, academic and media.

Other discussions:

  1. We still have a long way to go regarding local context and the inclusiveness of language and space to be accessible to local people.
  2. Regulators should be a part of public participation and community first advocacy for the main strategy — some countries, like SA, have census on where connectivity should be based on the poorest areas. Advocates should approach these communities and ask about their needs. 
  3. Many investors are basing their decisions on data that is outdated or incomplete. There is a need for open telecom data to align with USF e.g. in SA each licensee has to contribute 2% of their annual profit to the USF. Agency should be transparent about where the funds are going.
  4. The idea of listening more and having more voices present in the bottom up — documenting, creating evidence-based research etc. will help to challenge mainstream challenges in the policy spaces.
  5. Announcement of SPACE 2022 Fellowship/Spaceship — participants interested will be paired with mentors of their choice for the next 6 months. 
  6. Announcement by Adriana on Gender IT edition — community networks as infrastructure of resistance.
  7. Announcement from Debora — consent to use twitter handles and tweets to talk about SPACE journey on APC social media communications.
Memorable quotes:

“There is nothing outside space - space contains everything and it contains the whole. Hopefully we will be able to carry this forward.” — Cynthia, quoting philosopher Alan Watts

“Sorority is important. Remain like sisters, including in policy battles in advocacy.” – Adriana

 

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