Community networks on the web

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LAC internet access projects selected by FRIDA/LACNIC

FRIDA, LACNIC’s Regional Fund for the Strengthening of the Internet in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced the winners of its annual call for proposals, including some initiatives related to community networks.

On the Internet Access category, the “Pilot Project for Television White Space Technology in Montes de María, Colombia” by ADITUM S.A.S. took the award for its proposal on alternative access models.

And the projects selected as grant recipients were:

  • “4G Community Network,” by Telecomunicaciones Indígenas Comunitarias, A.C., Mexico;
  • “LibreRouter V2.0: Evolving Technological Sovereignty," by Asociación Civil AlterMundi, Argentina;
  • “Community Communications Networks for Strengthening the Circular Economy and Social Exchange in La Macarena, Meta,” bu Asociación Colnodo, Colombia;
  • “Reducing the Digital Divide in Vulnerable Populations in the City of Córdoba through the Use of WIFI and Unlicensed LTE Technology,” by the City of Córdoba.

More information can be found here:

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19 Oct 2021 Costa Rica project helps to promote Cabécar culture, language

A project with Sula Batsu with partnership with WACC and APC.

“La antena de las mujeres (Women’s Antenna), seeks to address this challenge by establishing a local community network that will provide Cabecar women the tools to integrate young people in knowledge exchange processes using digital technologies”

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Seeding change: Creating a digital community network with the Ju|’hoan people in Namibia

This catalytic project built a digital community network for the Ju|’hoan people living in the remote Nyae Nyae Conservancy in Namibia. The team involved worked together with the community to co-design an offline social network that allowed the Ju|'hoansi people to exchange audio recordings, including ones about gardening challenges and practices to produce their food. Beyond overcoming the many access challenges faced in the region, their experience highlighted the value of technologies co-designed in a community-oriented approach and the importance of local content sharing.

Find out more: Seeding change: Creating a digital community network with the Ju|’hoan people in Namibia | Association for Progressive Communications

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INFRASTRUCTURES OF RESISTANCE: COMMUNITY NETWORKS HACKING THE GLOBAL CRISIS

In this second year of living in times of unequal global health crisis, this special edition of GenderIT.org show how intersectional approaches in community networks have been transforming realities by embodying infrastructures of resistance and bringing hope to their communities:

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208

SPACE: The mentorship programme that seeks to address gendered experiences in access-related policy and regulation building

https://www.apc.org/en/news/space-mentorship-programme-seeks-address-gendered-experiences-access-related-policy-and

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Gender and community networks

The Centre for Information technology and development (CITAD) convened a one-day consultative meeting on gender and community networks. This piece brings their observations and recommendations:

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The essence of community networks is more than the infrastructure. It’s giving communities power to self-determination, to build/adapt/use technologies that reflect their values, needs and priorities.
@josephine.miliza / KICTANet

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Great news from Colnodo about the ‘Weinüin Walapüin’ community network in Colombia:

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Super interesting contribution from @sol / ISOC on assessing community network readiness and planning and building the network.

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Colnodo: Escuela de Seguridad Digital de Colnodo lanza Kit Comunitario para la formación y prevención de riesgos digitales en comunidades rurales

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Numun Fund’s first grant entirely dedicated to supporting feminist tech activism and work in the Larger World is open!

The “Seed, Grow and Sustain” Grant Call is open from 1 July to 1 August 2022.

This is grant a multi-year, flexible grant open for application by initiatives, collectives, groups and organisations with a focus on feminist tech activism in the Larger World (aka the Global South).

:: Download the [full application pack]: https://numun.fund/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Seed-Grow-Sustain-Full-Application-Pack-Numun-Fund.pdf), or see it online, or in plaintext
:: [Start your application here]: Numun Fund’s first call for applications is open! - Numun Fund!

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I think this is a really good resource that many of the community networks out there can benefit.
A wiki community around solar energy systems:
https://www.opensourcesolar.org/w/index.php/Main_Page/es

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Mapeo is an Open Source tool for monitoring and documenting the world around you, an offline peer to peer app that was thought from the ground up to easily document environmental and human rights information.

It can definitely be used for surveying community sites for potential places were to set up infrastructure, as well as for geographic needs for the community that are not directly connected with telecom infrastructure.

Check out this story about it: Mapeo: Monitor and document the world around you - Earth Defenders Toolkit

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Terrastories is an Open Source tool for place based storytelling.

Many earth defender communities across the world express a strong relationship with their territory, and a commitment to taking care of their territory in the way their ancestors have for generations. Doing so requires a strong sense of place and place-based knowledge, and there is no better place to learn that than through storytelling.

Storytelling is the way that information gets passed through the generations, but as colonization, deforestation and acculturation creep deeper into communities’ ways of life, that living memory is threatened.

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Routing for Communities podcast

An audio journey tracing community connectivity around the world

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In this podcast, we invite you on a journey to discover community-led experiences of people who have come up with alternatives to overcome the challenges of digital inclusion in remote, rural and urban areas across the globe. Here you can listen to the life stories of those connecting themselves while defending the fundamental rights and well-being of their communities.

During our season together, we will get inspired by stories and voices that are intertwined, connected by a common thread: building internet and communication community networks. We will learn more about the local realities and needs, and understand why a bottom-up approach is key to promoting connectivity to co-create a free, safe and worthwhile digital future leaving no one behind.

You can listen to the episodes here: https://routingforcommunities.apc.org/

To keep up to date with new episodes you can also join our Telegram channel.

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Survey: Help LocNet Better Support the Community Centred Connectivity Movement

Greetings Community Initiatives,

As you may know, the mission of the APC-Rhizomatica LocNet project is to support community-centred connectivity movement in the global South and contribute to the movement and its supporting ecosystem. Further information on our work is available here.

In order to help us understand how best to support this movement globally, regionally and nationally, we are conducting a survey of these initiatives. Beyond helping us to improve the design of activities and strategies to better support your work, the survey’s results will be presented in events, reports and decision-making processes aiming to foster an enabling environment for community-centred initiatives. We also expect this work to increase the visibility of the community-centred connectivity movement and will build awareness among communities of others doing similar work.

If you are part of or know of an initiative/project in your region, please consider contributing to this survey, which is available in the following languages:

Please note that all the information that you provide will only be used for the specific purposes of this survey. Answering the survey is completely optional and we are aware that it is important to assess any risks or impacts that sharing information might have, taking into account your local context. To minimize possible risks, all personally identifiable information received through the survey (e.g. email address or name) will be kept confidential, used only for the survey objective, and then deleted and anonymized for aggregated statistical analysis. Once the data is anonymized, APC will not be able to personally identify you by the information you provide in your responses to this survey and we will not store your personal information, and therefore we will not be able to disclose it to third parties.

We also acknowledge the importance of making the aggregated data available to those who contributed their answers, and in a way that participants can use them as they wish. Therefore we will do our best to ensure that the aggregated data and any findings based on the information gathered are shared and accessible in all the five languages of the survey and that any reports based on the data are published under a creative common license.

The questionnaire is designed for individual, physically independent local initiatives. If you are providing data for multiple local initiatives in different locations, then please submit the data for each network in a separate questionnaire. Thank you very much!

Best Regards,
LocNet team

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