The APC Hafkin Communications Prize:
Winner and Finalists in 2001
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The theme for
the 2001 Hafkin Prize was:
Women-Led, Women-Informed, Women-Inspired Initiatives
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Nominations
were judged by our African jury
according to these 4 main criteria:
1. Utilisation of ICTs, especially
the Internet
2. Mobilising Awareness and Participation, and Building
Capacity
3. Africa-Driven and Developing Africa
4. Women-Led, Women-Informed, Women-Inspired
The Winner in 2001
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"I
never dreamt that what we were doing
at Bayanloco would get heard even in
Nigeria's capital city, and now we are
getting solidarity greetings from all
over the world. Your thoughtful consideration
and recognition have strengthened my
knees, and especially coming from fellow
women.
The
issue of technophobia is one which has
been very close to my heart and I was
planning to start a new initiative which
we have called 'Catch them Young' in
which I will be addressing female students
in secondary schools and instituting
an essay competition. Winners and runners-up
will be given scholarships for IT training
at Bayanloco. The Hafkin Prize has come
at an opportune time as part of it will
be used for the scholarships. We would
like to have your permission to call
these the HAFKIN SCHOLARSHIP FOR WOMEN'S
IT TRAINING AT BAYANLOCO."
Kazanka
Comfort, Bayanloco CLC, to APC after
receiving the APC Hafkin Prize award
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2001
APC Africa Hafkin Prize winner trains women in rural Nigeria
to use information technology for peace and poverty alleviation
The Fantsuam Foundation: Bayanloco Community Learning Centre
PRETORIA, South Africa --
The first APC Africa Hafkin Communications Prize in recognition
of outstanding and creative uses of information and communication
technologies was awarded at Wednesday evening's African
Communications & Technology (ACT) Summit gala dinner to
the Bayanloco Community Learning Centre in Kaduna State,
Nigeria, an initiative of the Fantsuam Foundation led by
Kazanka Comfort.
Ms. Comfort's work on a women-led
peace initiative in the villages, where women act as detectors
of potential flash-points of communal violence and as peace
brokers, made her realize that fast communication among
the rural women could mean the difference between life and
death in an emergency situation. She had seen email in action
while abroad studying and felt it could be a solution. However,
the villages she was working in were poor and rural, in
many cases without electricity, let alone computer equipment.
Her employer, the Fantsuam Foundation,
also saw the potential impact that having an email address
and access to computers in each village could make, and
so did the villagers. So, the Foundation decided to support
community-based, community-sustained computer centres as
part of their microcredit and poverty alleviation scheme.
The first Community Learning Centre (CLC) was set up through
the disbursement of loans to women of the Bechechet Bayinring
clan of Kpunyai village with Kazanka Comfort providing basic
computer literacy classes. Users paid fees to train and
use the facilities, sometimes in-kind.
"The most amazing aspect about the Bayanloco
Community Learning Centre," said Nancy Hafkin, "is that
it managed to come into existence at all". Ms. Hafkin, for
whom the APC prize was named, should know. As a key pioneer
of networking and development information and communications
in Africa, over the course of a twenty-three year career,
she has seen even promising ICT initiatives fail. In contrast,
the Bayanloco Centre had to overcome multiple obstacles,
including the initial opposition of an all-male Board of
Trustees, technophobia among the rural women who would be
beneficiaries of the project, high levels of illiteracy,
initial lack of Internet access, no phone and no regular
supply of electricity. The project founder and leader was
herself no "techie", but simply a woman from Nigeria who
realized the potential of the technology to help rural women
not only meet their basic needs but also to save lives in
times of emergency and communal strife.
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| Kazanka Comfort - the drive behind
the establishment of the Bayanloco CLC |
Largely due to the determination of Ms.
Comfort and the enthusiastic reception of the IT training
by local communities, eight additional rural communities
and two tertiary education institutions have requested partnership
with the Fantsuam Foundation in order to start their own
CLCs; the Bayanloco Women's Microcredit groups supervise
the CLC; and two training colleges are using the facilities
for their Distance Learning Programme for teachers in rural
communities. There are plans to provide satellite-based
email and Internet access financed by a recent grant.
"Kazanka Comfort demonstrated that information
technology is not an unnecessary luxury for rural women
in poor countries, but rather a tool to help them meet their
needs. The project was not technology driven; it was woman-driven!"
said Hafkin in her award statement, ead at the ACT Summit
by APC's Executive Director, Anriette Esterhuysen. "The
Hafkin Prize winner and the other finalists debunk some
common myths about Africa and African women," added Ms.
Esterhuysen. "There is a perception that Africa is the 'unconnected
continent', bypassed by the so-called 'information age',
and that African women are disempowered victims of social
and economic equality. What is not adequately recognised
is that Africans, and specifically African women are being
remarkably innovative, entrepreneurial and courageous in
engaging information and communications technologies, in
spite of limited access to resources and infrastructure.
The Hafkin Prize is as much about promoting African capacity
and creativity in the information technology sector as it
is about recognising specific initiatives."
APC would like to thank the International
Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada, for their
contribution to this initiative.
(08/01/2001)
Read
about the other finalists
The project founder
and inspiration - Kazanka Comfort - writes to APC following
the news of the award.
Read the congratulations
to Bayanloco from Nancy Hafkin
Read the speech from Afework
Temtime, representative of the Economic Commission for Africa
(ECA) at the Prize presentation at the ACT Summit, Pretoria.
The Hafkin Prize finalists for 2001
The
other finalists for the first-ever APC Africa Hafkin Communications
Prize are:
Cyber-Training: Reporting on HIV/AIDS and Women in Africa,
Africa Women's Media Centre
The
AWMC was established in 1997 as a project of the International
Women's Media Foundation, which works to strengthen the
role of women in the news media world-wide, based on the
belief that no press is truly free unless women share an
equal voice. The AWMC, headquartered in Dakar, Senegal,
provides African women journalists the training, resources
and tools they need to compete equally with their male colleagues.
The
AWMC's
Cyber-training on Reporting on HIV/AIDS and Women in Africa
brought to light the important role women journalists play
in helping raise the public's awareness about HIV/AIDS.
Clearly, a journalist who understands the larger public
policy implications, the medical facts of HIV/AIDS and is
aware of the myths surrounding the disease will be more
likely to produce stories that hold governments accountable,
educate the public on how to prevent and cope with the disease
and help discredit stereotypes, and AWMC's training of journalists
is playing a significant role in promoting prevention and
reducing the stigma associated the virus in Africa.
Website:
http://www.awmc.com/News/Dec00/hiv.htm
E-mail: amiejoof@hotmail.com
NairoBits
An
entirely women-led initiative, NairoBits
teaches young Africans from slum areas the technical and
creative skills of Web design, to be able to express themselves
online. In turn they train their peers. In co-operation
with Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA), Nairobi, twenty
young Kenyans aged 17-20 from Mathare, the largest slum-area
in Nairobi, were selected to participate in the programme.
The result: twenty young enthusiastic new Web designers,
an exhibition of their creative efforts at the National
Museum of Kenya, a virtual dialogue with computer students
from other countries, a Website for MYSA, jobs for three
trainees, the beginnings of an independently-run business
and most importantly, a view to a self-determined future.
Website: http://www.nairobits.org
E-mail: info@nairobits.org
Slums Information Development And Resource Centres (SIDAREC)
Slums
Information Development & Resource Centres (SIDAREC)
is a youth-owned community project initiated in 1997 by
Lucy Mathai (currently project coordinator) and a group
of young people from the target village - Majengo/Pumwani.
The goal of SIDAREC is to empower young disadvantaged people
living in urban slums, but with leadership skills, to enable
them to become changers of their own environment. SIDAREC
set up a telecentre that has become a popular hang-out for
young locals, many of whom have been affected in some way
by the HIV/AIDS crisis. Previously cut off from information
that could enable them to make informed choices and prone
to apathy, these young people have turned the telecentre
into a social and educational forum where they meet to discuss
their challenges (often life-endangering, such as drug abuse
and irresponsible sexual practices); discussion usually
centring around information obtained from the Internet.
Website:
http://www.sidarec.or.ke
E-mail: sidarec@kenyaweb.com
Society For Women & AIDS In Africa (SWAAN), Nigerian Chapter
SWAAN
is a not-for-profit, non-religious, non-political, non-governmental
organisation with its head office in Lagos, Nigeria. It
is engaged in AIDS education, counselling and advocacy on
Health issues, in addition to networking with other organisations
within and outside Nigeria. From the initial six state branches,
SWAAN now has twenty-one state branches within Nigeria.
SWAAN has been an active collaborator with the West African
NGO network (WANGONeT),
and through the Africa-wide HIV/AIDS research database has
built up an electronic community of civil society organisations
across the region that share their goal of enhancing the
development of their stakeholders.
Website:
SWAAN does not have a Website
E-mail: swaan@cyberspace.net.ng
TAFTAF
TAFTAF
is a new, women-led, online community of Senegalese artisans
who are putting the commerce opportunities of the World
Wide Web to work. Not only do they sell locally-produced,
ethnic art, but they provide cultural information about
the communities and the customs from which the products
emerge. Nearly 60 artisans currently benefit from this initiative.
Website:
http://www.taftaf.com
E-mail: marlene@taftaf.com
