2016 Womanity Award Finalists Announced

Tackling violence against women through ICTs is a cornerstone of Womanity’s work in 2016. By convening actors driving innovation to prevent violence against women through the Womanity Award for the prevention of Violence Against Women, the foundation will provide three-years of support to two Awardees who will scale-up a successful innovation in a new context.

In May 2016, Womanity will announce the winners of the Womanity Award for the Prevention of Violence Against Women, at OuiShare Fest in Paris.

The four finalist pairs of organisations that will compete for this award in May are:

Take Back the Tech!

• Innovation Partner finalist: Association for Progressive Communications (South Africa)
• Scale-Up Partner finalist: La Sandia Digital (Mexico) and their project Luchadoras

Take Back the Tech! is a campaign to counter and build awareness of the problem of online and other tech-related violence against women. Since inception in 2006, it has supported local campaigns in over 30 countries. In 2011 TBTT! adapted the free Ushahidi software, enabling victims to report instances of online VAW, and build a global map of personal testimonies to help women’s rights organisations use evidence-based data to find solutions and speak out on the topic.

The Award would enable the Partners to produce internet TV programmes to increase awareness of the campaign (particularly in Spanish-speaking South America), use online and traditional media to communicate tools and strategies for dealing with tech-related VAW, and build a network of feminist activists and media producers.

The Gender and Tech Institute

• Innovation Partner finalist: Tactical Tech Collective (Germany)
• Scale-Up Partner finalist: Just Associates (JASS) Mesoamerica (Mexico / Costa Rica)

Whilst internet use is crucial to feminist activists, it can also be a space where women suffer harassment and surveillance. This can result in women’s voices being silenced as they censor themselves online in fear for their safety. This programme offers digital training in the field of internet security and privacy for leaders of organisations tackling VAW. The toolkits designed by the course participants serve to further train members of their own teams and networks.The Award would enable the training programme to have a far greater reach through JASS Associates’ global network.

Breakaway Game

• Innovation Partner finalist: Champlain College, Emergent Media Centre (USA)
• Scale-Up Partner finalist: Grassroot Soccer (South Africa)

Breakaway is a soccer-themed video game, encouraging players to move away from behaviour that promotes VAW, towards behaviour promoting mutual respect. Young players meet in camps where they role-play scenarios that create environments of gender equality. The game has been played in 185 countries with over 5,000 registered users.
The Award would enable Grassroot Soccer to adapt the Breakaway programme to their location and its needs. The organisation has successfully used soccer as a means to address HIV-prevention with young people in South Africa and further afield.

MyPlan App

• Innovation Partner finalist: Johns Hopkins School of Nursing (USA)
• Scale-Up Partner finalist: Il Comitato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo dei Popoli (CISP) (Kenya / Somalia)

Abused women often have little formal support or resources available to them, and cannot openly get help without further endangering themselves or their children. MyPlan is a free, online and smart phone decision-making app that helps women to consider the severity of violence in their relationship, along with other risk factors, to decide whether to leave an abusive partner, and to create a tailored, safe action plan for doing so, linking into resources available locally. Since its release in January 2014, the app has already been downloaded over 9,000 times.
The Award would enable the app to be adapted to help women in refugee settings in Nairobi and Mogadishu, make safe action plans in partnership with health professionals.

ICT for Womanity Network

Womanity is excited to announce that the resulting partnerships will also connect with existing Tech-for-Gender projects, creating a global network of activists and practitioners already using these technologies to tackle VAW. This collaborative network will be called the ICT for Womanity network. This network will:

• Increase the two Award winners’ learning opportunities;
• Provide a safe space to exchange information and knowledge on how ICTs can prevent violence against women;
• Collect and analyse data to assess the effectiveness of ICTs improving women’s safety;
• Increase awareness in the mainstream media of how ICT is proven to prevent violence against women.

If you are an innovator in the field, express your interest to join the ICTforWomanity Network here.

What we are looking for
The Womanity Foundation seeks donors and supporters to invest in and promote the work conducted under the Womanity Award. This may include endorsements, providing profile, facilitating partnerships, alongside funding for the award and the ICT for Womanity network.
For more information, please contact us.