Tech4Change: Giving voice to the experience of poverty and change

April 28, 2010 in Campaigns, Rants & Raves
Tags: ActionAid Australia, Australia, bloggers, Bloggers Unite, blogging, education, international, online activism, politics, poverty, poverty cycle, Project TOTO, social justice, social media, Tech4Change, technology

This piece [is] in support of ActionAid Australia’s Project TOTO latest initiative Tech4Change Blog Day action.

I’ve written a lot about technology and how it can be used for social and progressive change. All too often we’re asked to dig deep into our pockets to support charities’ fight against poverty and to break the poverty cycle. And while this is a very worthy thing to do, sometimes it can feel hollow. The real power for communities in breaking the poverty cycle are their experiences told in their own voices.

By using tools like blogs, and video and picture sharing websites, it provides a global audience and a platform from which to speak out about poverty and their day-to-day lives and experiences. Connecting with social media further enables people to share, connect and engage. It makes it possible to get beyond the local politicians, or biases in the mainstream media; and the international community is increasingly seeking out these experiences. And importantly it enables people to follow the experiences – the highs and lows, the victories and disappoints – of local communities in their fight to break the poverty cycle.

Technology can also make it possible for these communities to generate their own donations and incomes. In generating their own donations and incomes, it enables local communities to decide how best to use donations/income rather than being told how it will be prioritised. By giving voice to the voice-less, it creates something positive for those on the front line in local communities fighting the poverty cycle.

And ActionAid Australia’s Project TOTO has been illustrating quite well just how social media and technology can be used to combat poverty. They’ve been out there empowering communities in some of the poorest parts of the world through letting them tell their stories in their own words. And by doing so, it creates something very powerful for those expressing the stories and to those in receipt of those stories.

I strongly believe that the Internet and social media can make a difference and can help break the cycle of poverty.