I am getting a site together which you might like at landrights4all.weebly.com

From that site, of particular relevance to this article about technology in the favelas is this technology which we are still refining –

“NTW’s activity organiser – CreateVillage

Using “CreateVillage” technology, neighbours can see …or add to:
* Local Activities & Resources
* Neighbours Discussions
or can:
* Kick off or Help Organise a local Activity

(Check out how it can work for “planting an orange tree”)

Without excluding the rich, the essential audience for Village is the poor – in Australia and everywhere else.

Because the poor are often illiterate or without the internet, Village is already well stuck behind the eight ball. Leaving these two practicalities for the future, Village stays focused on those poorest who do have smartphones (which may soon enough supersede literacy with voice apps).

Village is a tool BY the poor – long term unemployed in Australia living in 2 public housing estates. It is a tool BY which they can magnify their own strength. If we are talking about the empowerment of the poor, it’s not “to” the poor, not “for” the poor, not “with” the poor, all of which can indicate disempowering perspectives. By the poor is an important perspective from which to understand Village – language creates dynamics.

But how does Village help the poor to empower themselves, when other tools currently available would require training and expertise, depend on and establish leadership and thereby create winners, losers and recreate poverty?

If you’ve ever been disempowered and made to feel incompetent, trying something new is full of fears. There’s nothing empowering about involvement in something where you feel incompetent.

If your strategy for survival has been to appear as deserving of social security or aid money as possible, the idea of leading is just as disempowering as needing to follow.

You don’t want training – or testing! You want to be left alone with whatever little bit of security you’ve got. Besides, people already know more about what they need and want than any education can provide. They know too that the barriers they face are part of the “organising” structures which alienate them. Structures of power become structures of oppression for them.

Village is designed to connect people.

Having come to the site just curious to find out about local “Activities & Events”, it’s made easy to explore “involvement” without expectation, consequence or identification. Your “exploration” or “involvement” remains under your control, whether it is just for idle chit chat or deeper involvement.

Village supports – it doesn’t lead, or ask you to lead or to follow and it doesn’t require expertise or qualification, even one day soon without being literate. On Village you can speak up and be heard at any time about any subject or activity. Whether it’s about garbage collection or changing the world, the Village technology helps to give what you say maximum relevance by putting it right into the middle of the right conversation and, when ready, by helping convert ideas into easy steps and a timetable for action.

Chris Baulman

@landrights4all