MDG3 Take Back the Tech! Fund

The Take Back the Tech! Fund which is providing small grants of up to USD 5000 USD each to over sixty local, primarily community based organisations to implement projects that use ICTs to end violence against women and building their capacity to do so.

Grantees include a project to build the capacity of a group of young black lesbians in South Africa to document violence against lesbian women and monitor court cases where women have reported violence. Hate crimes against lesbians is a huge but almost invisible issue in South Africa.

Another project we are supporting is a community-wide anti-violence against women campaign in Colombia targeting 400 women and girls in local organisations and schools. The project is led by an impoverished community of slave descendants, where women are actively fighting for women’s rights and the rights of Afro-Colombians.

This is one part of APC’s work towards achieving the third Millennium Development Goal on equality for women which the APC women’s programme hopes will create a real ripple in tens of communities. Using our already existing networks of anti-violence women’s groups, we want to support their work through the fund and increase their ability and the ability of the women survivors they work with to use technology to improve the status of women in their communities.

THE GRANT WINNERS

Africa
Congo, Democratic Republic of (DRC) – Women in the “capital of rape” use tech to bring attention to their cause
Congo, Republic of – Congolese students and survivors use ICTs to prevent the spread of violence
South Africa – Ending violence against women in South African townships
Uganda – A phone call away: Mobile phones help end violence against women in Uganda

Asia
Cambodia – Cambodian students use social media to teach each other
Malaysia – Malaysian women explore how ICTs can help end violence against women
Pakistan – Resources and platorms to help survivors of violence against women in Pakistan
Philippines – Local radio, sms helplines, and the internet: Filipino women think local in stopping eVAW

Latin America
Argentina – Women’s refuges go online and strengthen their off line identity
Brazil – Videos, graffiti and photos to prevent violence against women in Brazil
Colombia – Testimonies of women in war-torn Colombia win APC funding
Mexico – Mexican girls to promote safe use of Facebook

The grants have been put in place to ensure that there are sufficient resources and support to follow through with concrete interventions to eliminate violence against women and girls, and will help towards create a global community of women and adolescent girls who are critically taking up ICT tools and using them to change what the UN Millennium project has called a global epidemic of violence.

Photo: Woman from Northern Argentina’s border with a pamphlet made thanks to the small grants fund