WUNRN
http://www.isisinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1429&Itemid=354
Isis
International Feminist Activist School
Communication
for Social Change
The Isis International Feminist Activist School
provides capacity building in using media and communications for advocacy,
social change and women’s rights. The capacity building can take the form of
in-house or onsite training workshops, seminars, roundtable discussions, and
study tours.
Whatever the form, the School aims to:
·
strengthen
social movements and advocacies through the strategic use of media and
information and communication technologies (ICTs);
·
enhance
women's skills and knowledge in communication technologies; and
·
create a
network of international women communicators.
The Isis International Activist School partners with
women’s groups, social justice groups and individual feminists and women
activists globally. It brings together grassroots women, activists working on
the ground, and women leaders who are immersed in and directly affected
by the issues that they are advocating and working on.
Since its launch in 2010, the Activist School has
raised the voices of marginalized women and groups and strengthened their
cause-oriented advocacies including: addressing gender-based violence; peace
building; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues; engendering
climate justice, migrant rights; citizen journalism; and other human rights
issues.
The Activist School builds on the capacity building
that Isis International has undertaken through the years, in particular the
Community radio trainings conducted in partnership with other organizations,
especially AMARC, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters.
The Activist School takes a multidimensional holistic
approach that starts from the self to the larger transformation of social
issues. Each Activist School includes all or some of these aspects:
·
inner
awareness and consciousness of self, motivations and values and self care;
·
relationship
of self with organization/community and questions of sustainability of their
movement/advocacy;
·
feminist
consciousness raising;
·
feminist
frameworks of analysis including new theorizing on gender, power dynamics
framework and women human rights defenders issues;
·
skills in
strategizing for communication and advocacy and new information and
communications technology tools; and,
·
understanding
of organisations, networks and movements including on line networks and
campaigns.
Isis International develops the Activist School in
partnership with requesting groups and organisations to meet specific needs and
incorporate their ideas. For more information contact isis@isiswomen.org .
Announcements and calls for applications for each Isis
International Activist School will be available on the Isis International
website and Facebook page.
Backstory
Ever since its creation in 1974, Isis International
has been committed to achieving women's human rights and empowerment by
increasing their participation and access to media and information and
communication technologies (ICTs). Hand in hand with this, Isis facilitates
networking and information sharing of women's movements in recognition of the
fact that the development of new media and information and communication
technologies has drastically changed the way of social mobilization and
organizing, as well as movement building and advocacy.
In 2008, Isis concluded a three-year five-country
(India, Thailand, Philippines, Fiji and Papua New Guinea) research project
called “People's Communications for Development” (PC4D) in the Asia-Pacific
region. The purpose of the research project was (a) to uncover how intermediary
groups used new ICTs and traditional communication tools in interacting with
grassroots women; and, (b) to determine the most effective communication tools
for grassroots women's empowerment. Results from PC4D show that the most
effective communication tools to reach grassroots women are radio, followed by
theatre, film and face-to-face communication. The research also brought to
light demands from women's groups on the convergence of traditional and new
media and communication technologies. It was this research that underscored the
role of Isis International to further develop a programmatic approach towards
the need for capacity building and information sharing in gender, media and
communications. Isis gave birth to the Isis International Activist School to
systematize and institutionalize feminist communication for activism and
advocacy work towards human rights.