Pamoya

WOUGNET Update Newsletter - February 2010
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A monthly electronic newsletter from Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET)
- http://www.wougnet.org

For comments or queries, contact info [at] wougnet [dot] org

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This issue's contents:
1. News and Events
2. Tech Support
3. Citizen Journalism
4. Gender and ICT Policy
5. WOUGNET News
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On behalf of Women of Uganda Network, we take
this opportunity to wish you all a happy 2010 and
welcome you to our very first e-newsletter for
2010. To Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), 2010
is a special landmark in the existence of the
organization. WOUGNET will be celebrating its
10th anniversary in May as it continues to
promote and support the use of ICTs by women and
women organisations in Uganda, so that they can
take advantage of the opportunities presented by
ICTs in order to effectively address national and
local problems of sustainable development.

While our emphasis is directed towards Internet
technologies, we are also interested in how these
technologies can be integrated with traditional
means of information exchange and dissemination
including radio, video, television and print
media. Our goal is to improve conditions of life
for women by enhancing their capacities and
opportunities for exchange, collaboration and information sharing.

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News and Events
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= Women, Tools, Technology: Building Opportunities and economic power.
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/478/1/

Join Ashoka's Changemakers, ExxonMobil, and The
International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)
in this global Women | Tools | Technology:
Building Opportunities & Economic Power
challenge! Share your innovations which enable
women to access and use the power of tools and
technology to expand their opportunities for
economic advancement. For more information, visit
also ICRW's Bridging the Gender Divide in Technology.

= Third Lango Forum on e-Agriculture: Improving
information access for agricultural and rural development
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/481/1/

WOUGNET with support from the Technical Centre
for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU
(CTA) hosts the Lango Forum on e-Agriculture.
This event is held twice a year in Apac District,
Northern Uganda. This year the third Lango Forum
on e-Agriculture will be held on the 18th
February 2010. The purpose of the forum is to
sensitize rural women and the community at large
on the role of ICTs in rural and agricultural
development. Forum participants share knowledge
and experiences on how ICTs have been or could be
applied in agriculture and rural development
within the region, highlighting both the benefits
and the challenges. Participants include farmers,
district leaders, Civil Society organisations
from Apac, Gulu, Lira, and Oyam districts, and
stakeholders from other areas of Uganda.

= MoMoKla: Experts Ask for Lower Mobile broadband Costs in Uganda
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/index.php

Experts in mobile communications have urged
UgandaÂ's operators to reduce the cost of mobile
broadband to increase the penetration of mobile
phone-based services among people. Cheap mobile
broadband is also a major incentive for the
growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms.

Mobile Monday, the global community of mobile
industry professionals and innovators, has now
launched its newest chapter in Uganda. The
Kampala Chapter was founded by representatives
from UgandaÂ's telecom companies: Orange Uganda,
MTN Uganda, I-telecom, Mara Telecoms,
Universities, media and ICT firms. At the
inaugural meeting facilitated by Dr. Madanmohan
Rao, the research projects director for Mobile
Monday, the various stakeholders in the nationÂ's
mobile and ICT sectors chose the name MoMoKLA for
the Kampala city chapter - http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/473/1/

MoMoKLA is scheduled to be officially launched on
March 8, prior to the opening of the Digital
Africa Summit 2010 that will be held in Kampala.

= Apac District Agricultural Network and NAADSÂ'
help improves rural women livelihoods
http://kic.wougnet.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73%2...

Rural women in Bala Sub-County, Apac District in
Northern Uganda have benefited from the support
that the Apac District Agricultural Network
(ADAN) and the National Agricultural Advisory
Services has extended to them in the fight
against poverty. The women groups that were
formed by the KIC with support of CTA has
received about 15 indigenous goats, ox-ploughs
and improve animal breeds (pigs) from the Apac
District Agricultural Network and NAADs respectively.

= E-Society project Apac to be opened and administered by the District
http://kic.wougnet.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout...
Apac District local government has agreed to open
and take up the e-Society project after
termination of the project by IICD and Hivos that
supported the project under the supervision of
the I-Network in Uganda. The e-Society project
was established through collaborative efforts as
a locally owned coherent programme by district
government, civil society and stakeholders in
2007 to provide a platform to create
opportunities for access to and sharing of
information, knowledge and services in order to
improve overall service delivery in the district
and to strengthened government-civil society interaction and collaboration.

*** JOB OPPORTUNITIES ***

= WOUGNET Fundraising Manger (Extended application deadline: 25 February 2010)
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/blogsection/18/110/

WOUGNET is looking to fill the position of
Fundraising Manager. The WOUGNET Fundraising
Manager is a dynamic, self-motivated, innovative,
organised and outgoing person to match a
demanding and challenging role that requires
excellent relationship management and
communication skills, strong planning and
organisational skills, the ability to self start
as well as a tenacious attitude. The Fundraising
Manager is passionate about improving the lives of women in Uganda.

*** UPCOMING EVENTS ***

= Web 2.0 training, 15 - 17 February 2010
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/component/option,com_events/task,view_detail/...
Web 2.0 for the Kubere Information Centre staff
and selected partner organisations in Apac
District. The goal will be to equip the project
staff with the skills to take advantage of the
Web 2.0 tools in increasing knowledge sharing and
information dissemination based on WOUGNET
experiences with the project as well as providing
a channel from the voices of the women farmers to reach a broader audience.

= Lango forum on e-Agriculture, 18 February 2010
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/component/option,com_events/task,view_detail/...
As part of the project implementation, the Kubere
Information Center (KIC) and Women of Uganda
Network (WOUGNET) is organizing the third Lango
Forum on e-Agriculture with a major objective of
sensitizing the rural women farmers, policy
makers and the community in general on the role
of Information and Communications Technologies
(ICTs) in Agricultural and Rural development.

= Gender and ICT Youth Forums, 19 - 28 February 2008
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/component/option,com_events/task,view_detail/...
Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) in
collaboration with Uganda Communication
Commission (UCC) will continue organizing Gender
and ICT Youth Forums which mainly targets the
girl child in Western Uganda. The event which is
intended to attract over 200 female youths from
schools drawn from Kabarole, Kasese and Hoima
districts all from the western region.
The objective of the camp is to create awareness
about the potential of ICTs and gender gaps that
exist in the information society so that the
young girls can make use of opportunities offered
by ICTs. The camp will also be an opportunity to
raise awareness about services offered by the
Uganda Communication Commission (UCC), the
activities carried out by Women of Uganda Network
(WOUGNET) and to build the skills of participants in basic ICT use.

= Workshop of the research findings of
Reproductive Health status in Uganda, 24 February 2010
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/component/option,com_events/task,view_detail/...
EASSI will hold a one day workshop to disseminate
research findings of a study on Reproductive
Health and Sexual Rights focusing on resource
mobilization, allocation and utilization in the
sector and the institutional mechanism to support
it, on Wednesday 24th February 2010 at Hotel
Africana. The main objective of the workshop is
to disseminate the study findings to key
stakeholders for their input. These stakeholders
are representative of civil society, government
Ministries, legislators and the academia.

= Conn [at] ct [dot] Now Stakeholder Engagement Workshop, 25 - 27 February 2010
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/component/option,com_events/task,view_detail/...
Conn [at] ct [dot] Now is an approach to working in conflict
areas that aims to increase programmatic reach
and improve quality of interventions. It is unique in two respects:
(1) It incorporates ICTs and media into everyday
programming to reach greater numbers of children
in a more exciting and interactive way and to
reach children that normally are not reached due
to different barriers (security, social etc). The
approach can include things like radio phone-in
programmes on topics important to children and
youth, setting up a toll-free child helpline in a
country, opening resource centres where young
people can learn how to use computers and connect
with their peers in other countries, or SMS
campaigns to raise awareness about important child rights issues etc;
(2) It involves a group of partners with
headquarters in The Netherlands, all of whom have
very different expertise and strengths.
Knowledge, information, and contacts will
therefore be shared at both Head Office and field level.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tech Support
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= Internet Social Media Tools for NGOs
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/component/option,com_mamblog/Itemid,83/task,s...

The U.S. Mission's Information Resource Center in
Kampala hosted a half-day workshop on Internet's
Social Media Networking tools for NGO's
information and advocacy officers. The workshop
took place on Monday January 25, 2010 at the U.S.
Mission ( Embassy), Plot 1577, Ggaba Road, and began at 2:30 p.m.
The Workshop Objective was to bring together NGO
officials to discuss how to use the Social Media
Networking tools like Facebook, blogs and Twitter
to promote democracy, human rights and good governance.

= Google starts Mass digitization of Books
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/component/option,com_mamblog/Itemid,83/task,s...

The mass digitization of large volumes of books
has begun. The initiative which is being
spearheaded by Google will be carried out in five
major US libraries. The goal of mass digitization
is not to create collections but to digitize
everything, or in this case, every book ever
printed. To do this economically and with some
speed, mass digitization is based on the
efficient photographing of books, page-by-page,
and subjecting those images to optical character
recognition (OCR) software to produce searchable text.

For more information or for assistance in
managing your computer and in using the Internet,
contact techsupport [at] wougnet [dot] org

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Citizen Journalism
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= CJA blogs on Uganda available via WOUGNET website

Follow the blogs on the Citizen Journalism in
Africa (CJA) website that are focused on Uganda.
The section 'What's New at the CJA Portal:
Uganda' on the WOUGNET website highlights the most recent blogs at:
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/blogcategory/66/105/

Blogs highlighted include:
- Third Lango Forum on e-Agriculture: Improving
information access for agricultural and rural development
- Ugandans reap wealth from nature, thanks to delicious grasshoppers
- Wainah is The place to be!
- SMUG calls for inclusive health care for LGBTIs
- Peoples Concepts about Twins
- The Young Face of HIV/AIDS
- A Lion slain -- outcome of the 'Battered Woman Syndrome'?

More blogs at can be read at
http://www.citizenjournalismafrica.org/news/Uganda

The Citizen Journalism in Africa project (CJA)
was a three-year initiative funded by both Hivos
and the EU. Hivos was working with SANGONet
(South Africa) on this project. The aim of the
project was to increase civil society
organisations' use of and interaction with
various forms of media. This would help them
maximise their communication strategies and
reach. It was hoped that this will strengthen the
organisations' use of media and increase quality
information dissemination capacity using multiple platforms.
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/component/option,com_mamblog/Itemid,83/task,s...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gender and ICT Policy
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= Launch of the GRACE Book - Women and ICTs, 11 Feb 2010
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/blogsection/13/39/

The Gender Research in Africa into ICTs for
Empowerment (GRACE) is a project that was
initiated in 2005 with an aim to provide context
specific data on how women in Africa use
information communication technologies (ICTs) to
improve their lives, barriers that prevent them
from accessing and utilisation of ICTS and how
they surmount these barriers. With support from
the International Development Research Center
(IDRC), GRACE evolved into an African network of
Gender and ICT researchers involving 14 research
teams in 12 different African countries including Uganda.

= Feminist Practice of technology
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/471/39/

Feminist Practice of Technology is a growing idea
that gives perspectives on technology. It poses
questions and defines issues relating to
technology from feminist perspectives, taking
into account various women's realities, women's
relationships with technologies, women's
participation in technology development and
policy-making, power dynamics in technologies and
feminist analysis of the social effects of technologies.

= FOWODE Leadership Training Camp
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/476/1/

Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) has invited
young women aged between 21 - 25 years who
completed their university or any tertiary
institution and are interested in Leadership to
apply for a Leadership Training Camp scheduled
for March 2010. The camp runs for three weeks and
is residential. Interested Applicants were
expected to have completed their tertiary
education between 2008 - 2010 and should have
held a leadership position in school,
institution, community or to be generally interested in leadership.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WOUGNET News
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= SMS Uprising: Mobile phone activism in Africa
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/472/1/

SMS Uprising: Mobile Phone Activism in Africa is
a book that offers practical examples of how
activists in Africa are using mobile technology
to organise and document their experiences and
how the phones' capabilities have had a dynamic
influence on activistsÂ' aims and strategies. The
authors – activists, academics and technology
specialists - look at inequalities in access to
technology based on gender and rural and urban
usage, and consider how mobile phonesÂ' increasing
integration with the internet helps activists
internationalize their struggles. WOUGNET was
among the contributors to the book.

= Follow WOUGNET-L discussions via WOUGNET website
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/index.php

Registered users on the WOUGNET website can now
follow the recent discussions on the WOUGNET-L
mailing list. Follow links on the right hand menu
to see the whole posting. Register at:
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/component/option,com_comprofiler/task,registers/

= Follow WOUGNET on Facebook and Twitter via WOUGNET website
http://www.wougnet.org/cms/index.php

Site visitors can now access WOUGNET on Facebook
and on Twitter via links from the WOUGNET website.

Become a Fan - Direct access to WOUGNET@Facebook is at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Women-of-Uganda-Network/133443013569

Follow WOUGNET - Direct access to WOUGNET@Twitter is at:
http://twitter.com/wougnet

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WOUGNET is supported by APC, CTA, Dimitra/FAO and Hivos

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For comments or queries, write to: info [at] wougnet [dot] org