Fahamu [www.fahamu.org] describes itself as a social justice
organisation, interested in ways to promote social justice
and human rights in Africa and throughout the world. They
have developed some innovative ways using technology to do
so.

"We're not interested in technology per se, but in the ways
technology can empower people. To understand human rights, to
empower them," says Fahamu production manager Becky Faith.

"We've got a range of CD-Rom based distance learning material
called 'Learning for Change'. We originally used CD-Roms
because developing distance learning material over the
internet means you're excluding large populations who don't
have access to the Net. CDroms which run on slow machines are
a good investment," Faith says.

Their approach is to combine CD-Rom based learning with
interactive exercises,and participation in moderated
mailing-list discussions. So, on joining, you become part of
a community of people learning together. With a tutor who's
not only an expert in that field of human rights, but also a
facilitator of consultations.

"We also offer optional workshops, which can take place after
a period of distance learning. For NGOs and people working in
human rights, they often can't afford to allow people to
leave their office for weeks on end; so distance learning is
a suitable way out," explains Faith.

They've delivered training to a very wide range of groups
across Africa. Many of the training material were developed
by Oxford University, so they've got a good academic base
behind them, as she explains.

Fahamu works with a range of partners, This includes the UN
Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, for whom
they've developed material on conflict prevention, and the
prevention of torture.

"These two UN courses are being rolled out across Asia,
Africa and Europe -- and are also getting them translated
into French, Spanish and Russian. Our course are going really
really well. It allows someone from very different cultures,
say somebody working for the UN in Nepal could compare their
experiences with someone working in Palestine. Everyone can
see the similarities," says Faith.

Fahamu, which means 'understanding' in Kiswihili, was founded
in the mid-nineties, by Dr Firoze Manji, who's Kenyan, and
who was excited by the way new technologies can be used to
support human rights and social justice. Dr Manji then used
to work with the Aga Khan Foundation and Amnesty
International.

"We worked on a great project with the UN-affiliated
University for Peace, on the use of the media in the Rwandan
genocide. It was written up by Gerry Caplan. We've run this
course for Rwandan journalists, and we've just also finished
running it for senior officers in the Rwandan military. It
was an interesting experience because they've got a real
hunger for learning about human rights. Gerry also
incidentally wrote the African Union report on the genocide,"
says Faith, updating us on some initiatives.

Fahamu has a weekly forum for social justice in Africa, an
electronic news letter and a website. It started some six
years ago with some 300 subscribers, and now has some 60,000
approx subscribers. It's also available on the web at
pambazuka.org (The term Pambazuka means 'arise' or 'awaken',
in the sense of dawning, or consciousness.)

Pambazuka News calls itself "a tool for progressive social
change in Africa". Produced by Fahamu, which itself deploys
information and communication technologies for the needs of
organisations and social movements working to progressive
social change, the work has already been noticed.

Fahamu was awarded by the Tech Museum of Innovation from a
field of 301 candidates, representing 64 countries. These
represent the "best of the best technologists whose
innovations benefit humanity". Fahamu became one of five Tech
Laureates in the Education category. Pambazuka News also won
the non-profit category of the sixth annual Highway Africa
awards for the innovative use of the New Media. It was
commended for its "rich content and excellent design".

Their newsletter is thematically, so for various categories
such as 'comments', 'letters'. They also have categories on
issues such as health, HIV/AIDS, education, conflict and
emergencies.

"One of the really exciting thing about Pambazuka is the
quality of writing it attracts. We're really privileged to
have some of Africa's best thinkers writing for us. There
seems to be a real hunger for it, because its content is not
found anywhere else on the web," explains Faith.

This network has brought out a book on editorials, which they
plan to release annually. "One thing we're really excited
about is to have a Nigerian blogger called Sokari Ekine doing
a weekly round-up of African blogs, a field which is really
rapidly expanding," says Faith.

What goes into Fahamu and Pambazuka? "We have a staff of 13
in offices in Cape Town, Oxford and Nairobi. But we would be
nothing without an incredible network of associates, in
Africa, and across the world really. People who write content
for us and help create our CDroms, people whom we can call
on as advisors, and that makes us much stronger," Faith explains.

By now, Pambazaku has morphed its roles. It began as an
information service, and has grown into a platform for
advocacy. Says Faith: "Now because of people's demands, it
has grown phenomenally as a tool for social justice. Advocacy
basically."

It's also involved in an association called Solidarity on
African Women's Rights. That's a coalition of women's
organisations across Africa, who have been working on a piece
of legislation called the Protocol on the Rights of Women in
Africa.

Fahamu sees itself as being part of some very successful
advocacy campaigns. For instance, they set up a petition on
pambazuka.org, and also set up a functionality to allow
people to sign the petition via SMS. Later, this petition was
presented to African Union leaders.

"We did that experiment with SMS, and realised that the power
of SMS, which is a kind of tool for political advocacy. We
saw how appropriate it is for the 'developing' world, where
the internet is expensive, and so are computers, but the
mobile phone usage has really exploded in Africa," says Faith.

In this case, people could also sign-upto get updates via SMS
whenever any new country signed the protocol. Says she:
"There's a lot of stuff in the press about the mobile phone
and the developing world, and we realised what a great tool
it was."

Fahamu also became involved with the Global Call to Action
Against Poverty. For that, they wanted to find a way to help
African voices on debt and trade to get heard. So they set up
a phone number where people could send in text messages,
about these issues. That message then got displayed on the
web.

In September 2005, the messages were displayed on the big en
during a concert. And people kept going around the event
convincing others to send in messages.

Pambazuka is about to come out with a French translation,
that it believes could transform its operations. It doesn't
have plans for Portuguese, another language popular in parts
of the African continent, but focuses on Arabic too. It sees
its French operations as "means not only a whole new
audience, but a whole new group of people writing (for
Pambazuka) and new possibilities."

Faith has been with Fahamu for four years. She sees herself
as being passionate about human rights, and technology both.
"But not technology for technology's sake. I'm interested in
technology in the service of the struggle for social justice
and empowerment," she says.

She worked in a commercial New Media industry for many years,
producing distance learning material. "And I realised that
there was so much you could do with the technology, in the
political field I was interested in. So I'm very privileged
to combine there two things," she adds.

Email contact: becky at fahamu.org