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Gender
Research in Africa into ICTs for Empowerment (GRACE)
The
Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
March
02, 2005
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=31068
CAPE TOWN, South
Africa -- GRACE, a new project from APC-Africa-Women, aims to explore
the ways in which women in Africa use information and communication
technologies (ICTs) to empower themselves, the external, structural
barriers as well as the internal factors which prevent them from
using ICTs to their advantage, and the strategies they employ to
overcome these barriers.
The project comprises 15 sub-projects, reflecting 14 research sites
in 12 countries and one meta research sub project. While coherent
with the general aim of the overall research initiative, the sub-projects
differ from each other greatly in terms of target group and research
focus.
The project aims to contribute to the debates focusing on women
empowerment and ICTs through finding its own understandings of what
"empowerment" and "gender" may mean in the African
ICT context. The lessons learnt will be shared with policy makers
and educators in the form of contextualised and local-specific recommendations.
An important focus of the overall project is capacity-building.
Researchers will be given the opportunities to develop research
capacity as well as capacity to use ICTs effectively. The project
has made provision for intensive training and ongoing mentoring
and support. It intends to integrate the research and the ICT aspects
into a holistic capacity building experience for the participants.
There are also longer term objectives:
- A research network will be formed that can do ongoing gender and
ICT research in Africa.
- A research base will be formed in various institutions throughout
Africa that can contribute to the debates around gender and ICT
issues.
- The knowledge which will be generated will influence policy at
local, national and regional/global levels.
As yet there is no public website to refer to for further information;
you may check the links below for more information in APC on ICT
policy and women.
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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