Advocacy & Research

DEF realises that its Mission and Vision can be actualised only with the full support of all stakeholders including the government, industry, civil society organisations and ordinary citizens. This requires advocacy campaigns. Advocacy in turn requires research and knowledge support. Projects in this programmatic area, therefore, address the twin needs of advocacy and research. Consequently, the work done under these projects tends to support and complement the work being done under other projects.
Through 3 projects more than 1000 people have been made aware of Internet Rights, more than 30 grassroots women change leaders have been identified and honoured and more than Rs 30 million has been raised to help NGOs working for women’s empowerment.

Projects

Internet RightsRed Rickshaw RevolutionMobile for Social & Behavioural ChangeICT4DScholl Research

Networking for freedom online and offline: protecting freedom of information, expression and association on the internet in India since 2011

DEF initiated “Internet Rights” in 2011 to advocate ‘internet access for all’ at the national level. As its first step of the project, DEF & APC jointly submitted their first UPR (Universal Periodic Review) in 2011 focusing on internet rights and making internet as an effective tool to access right to information in India. The project overall aims to address the specific areas of concern – right to information, internet & information access, internet governance, Internet regulation, content specifications, cyber law, and appropriate policy framework. The project brings out critical aspects of internet with related to human rights, right to information and how internet has been utilized by different sector of societies, marginal and underdeveloped communities to address their issues.

Objectives

Objective 1: Build awareness among target groups of the critical importance of protecting and promoting human rights on the internet as a pre-condition for democracy and the exercise of civil and political rights.

Objective 2: Strengthen understanding among target groups of how restrictions of human rights on the internet are implemented (including the rights to freedom of expression, privacy, and freedom of assembly), how these rights are being threatened at technical and regulatory levels by both States and corporations, and what techniques they can use to communicate more securely and safely online.

Objective 3: Provide human rights defenders (our primary target groups) with knowledge, tools and support to respond to rights violations and advocate for the long term protection of human rights on the internet.

Objective 4: Facilitate and support multi-stakeholder networks that can respond to threats to human rights on the internet and build stronger human rights cultures on the internet in each of the three countries.

Objective 5: Facilitate strategic linkages between national, regional and global advocacy for human rights on the internet through making use of opportunities presented by the Internet Governance Forum and the UN’s Human Rights Council, among others.

Focus Area
Advocating for Internet as basic human right

Website: internetrights.in

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Ritu Shrivastava

Programme Manager
E-Mail: Ritu.sri@defindia.net

An attempt to identify ordinary women in India who are change leaders at the grassroots level, felicitate them, celebrate them and digitally enable them to empower the community around them.

rrr

Red Rickshaw Revolution, a Vodafone Foundation initiative, aims to celebrate the achievements of ordinary women doing extraordinary work from various walks of life. This initiative was first started in 2013 as an auto rickshaw journey from Delhi to Mumbai to celebrate the achievements of 50 inspirational women and raise funds for three NGOs working towards women empowerment. The 2014 journey started on November 28 2014 with the objective of covering 8 states and unveiling another 20 extraordinary women.

The focus of RRRR’s 2014 was focus on women in governance who are currently occupying a leadership position in the Panchayat. These women leaders have stood against odds to reach where they are today and are doing incredible work, bringing a positive change and development work in their respective Panchayats. As a token of appreciation for their hard work and dedication, Vodafone Foundation and Digital Empowerment Foundation will set up a digital Community Information Resource Centre (dCIRC) in the respective Panchayat. This is one reason why the 2014 journey is referred to as a digital journey.

Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) is the implementation partner of RRR. With the Red Rickshaw Revolution initiative, DEF has added 20 more to the list with the support from Vodafone Foundation. The key objective of setting up these centres is to empower communities through information services and digital literacy. Each dCIRC will act as a centre for knowledge sharing, skill building, English learning, RTI filing, information on Government schemes, training for youth and women, to name a few.

Objectives :

  • Women empowerment
  • 20 dCIRCs have been inaugurated and 20 Panchayat women leaders have been felicitated during the RRR journey

Website: redrickshawrevolution.in

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Gayatri Handique

Programme Manager
E-Mail: redrickshawrevolution.in

The rapid growth of mobiles and the Internet have changed the ways in which communication and development take place. It is strongly perceived that the subject of mobile as a tool for social and behavioural change is an emerging area among stakeholders in communication for development space. ‘Mobile Phone as a Tool for Social & Behaviour Change’ is a joint effort of UNICEF India and DEF to explore various projects where women, adolescent girls and youth have effectively used mobiles in areas of health, education, sanitation, environment and monitoring and training of frontline workers. Trying to examine the prospects of ‘Mobile Phone as a Tool for Social & Behaviour Change’, DEF and UNICEF India organised a two-day consultation on, 9th and 10th May 2013 in New Delhi. The second part of the project attempts to scale up at a wider level and provide solution-based tools to various ongoing challenges surrounding the issue of women, adolescents, youth, girls, children and sectors across health, education, nutrition, and empowerment. This project attempts to study concerns around MSBC and create a formidable platform to provide knowledge on diverse MSBC implemented projects and help in developing partnerships between state governments and MSBC players.

Objectives

  1. Deliberation on the key aspects of communication for development; issues therein and how new tools and technology like mobiles are used for their redress;
  2. Consultation among the invited stakeholders (from ground, policy and implementation fields) the scope and opportunity for deployment and use of mobile tools and various platforms for empowerment of primary stakeholders as means of communication and information;
  3. Discussions, learning, exchanging and ideating on best practices using the mobile for social and behavior change in India;
  4. Attempt of scaling up of such practices to existing and new locations in order to reach out to the participant groups;
  5. Bringing out a research paper as an outcome of the consultation to address communication challenges, scope and opportunity to use and deploy mobile technology and platform in communication processes for social and behavior change; existing best practices; scope to scale up existing practices in partnerships and so on.

Focus Area
Assess the capacity of Mobile phone as a social and behavioral change maker especially for women and adolescent children

Impact

  • A total of 25 case studies covered under review of case studies
  • More than 150 stakeholders/ government/ academia/telecom operators and civil society groups have participated in several consultations.
  • 4 consultations with UNICEF state offices conducted in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh
  • More than 50 case studies presented in these consultations
  • 470 stakeholders participated in 4 consultations

Website : msbcindia.org

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Ritu Shrivastava

Programme Manager
E-Mail: Ritu.sri@defindia.net