E-voices: Redressing Marginality

e-Voices: Redressing Marginality brings together a global network of academics and practitioners to explore the theme of marginalisation and how digital media can be used to support marginalised groups to make their voices heard within and beyond the borders of their communities to promote social inclusion. This network aims to document these emblematic uses to promote discussion and exchange of ideas, and to enable adaptation and adoption by similar groups within and across countries. In particular, the network is going to explore three case studies: how favela residents in Brazil are using digital media to foster community engagement and active citizenship, how Kenyan artists are using digital tools to promote a dialogue around human rights and power structures and how development organisations working with displaced population in Syria are using digital technologies to foster peace, and reconciliation in the country.

To do so, the network leverage the experience and expertise of its core partnership Bournemouth University in the UK (PI), Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) in Brazil (Co-I), TCF/SparkLab in Syria, and PAWA254 in Kenya. The network also includes a consistent number of members coming from local institutions, local organisations, activists, and academics, namely:
- Brazilian activists and local organisations: Youth Forum of Rio de Janeiro, Mare Vive, Coletivo Papo Reto, Coletivo Piratininga de Comunicação/ NGOs- Rio on Watch, catalytic communities, Amnesty International
- Kenyan artists and local organisations: The Nest, who worked with LGBT communities, Osborne Marcharia, who have albinism or dwarfism (Osborne Macharia), Ng'endo Mukii, who worked with migrants.
- Development organisations working in Syria: Syrian Telecentres Project-Salamieh, Telecentre & Studies Centre for Handicapped Research, Community organizers network

e-Voices: Redressing Marginality is structured in 5 main events over 12 months:
- Event 1: kick-off meeting - December 2017, Bournemouth UK, including 20 Participants: A representative from each institution involved in the network + several academics from Bournemouth University, and 3 UK academics experts in the field.
- Event 2: Digital Activism in Brazilian Favelas - March 2018, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, including 30 Participants: A representative from each institution involved in the network + representatives from local organisations, city hall government, mainstream media, and local academics from UFF and UFRJ. The event will be covered/live streamed by the Coletivo Midia Ninja.
- Event 3: Digital Arts and Marginalised Identities - June 2018, Nairobi, Kenya, involving 50 Participants: A representative from each institution involved in the network + several affiliated Kenyan artists including award winning artists such as documentary animator, Ng'endo Mukii, photographer Osborne Macharia, artist Jim Chuchu, director Judy Kibenge, representative of local NGOs The Nest, GALK (Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya), NoneonRecord, and marginalised groups.
- Event 4: Digital Media to Promote the Reconciliation Process- July 2018, Damascus, Syria, involving 40 Participants: given the current situation in the country, only remote, virtual participation from the core team institutions in envisaged; Nabil Eid from TCF/Sparklab will be in charge of running the event with community organisers, local and international organisations working with refugees and displaced population.
- Event 5: Dissemination Event - November 2018, San Jose, Costa Rica, including 200 Participants: A representative for each institution involved in the network + representative from the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, representative from the University of Costa Rica and representatives from Latin America civic and academic society. The event will be live streamed in each of the ODA countries involved in the project: Brazil, Kenya, and Syria, where, simultaneously, a 1 day dissemination event will be organised.

e-Voices: Redressing Marginality explores the theme of marginalisation and how digital media can support marginalised groups to make their voices heard within and beyond the borders of their communities, to promote social change. The network aims at sharing strategies and modalities to fight marginalisation in three ODA countries, Brazil, Kenya and Syria, and focuses on the following four marginalised groups: slum residents, the LGBT community, people with disabilities, and refugees/displaced people. The network aims at producing transferable good practice guidelines to inform the activities of similar groups (within the countries involved in the network, but also globally) which, independent of the socio-political and cultural contexts, will be able to learn lessons for how to impact social opinions and policy in order to improve their lives. To do so it leverages the competences and the local networks of its partners:
- TCF/Sparklab is the world's largest association of Internet access and Internet training facilities, with over 750.000 centres around the globe, and a global network of more than 2600 non-profit and community-based and technical organisations specialised in digital empowerment.
- PAWA254 is an organisation that was setup to foster the creative arts for social impact in Kenya. It offers a collaborative space that brings together stakeholders from the creative sector to collaborate and share knowledge with the aim of social change.

The network adopts the following strategies to ensure impact
- National impact: each event taking place in a LMICs country (Brazil, Kenya and Syria) is going to produce impact for the communities and local organisations involved in the event, by fostering self-reflection and promoting international cross-fertilisation of experiences.
* In Brazil: we will work closely with the residents in Favela da Maré and local NGOs and activists in Rio de Janeiro;
* In Kenya: the network will include local artists such as The Nest, who worked with LGBT communities, Osborne Marcharia, who have albinism or dwarfism (Osborne Macharia), Ng'endo Mukii, who worked with migrants;
* In Syria: we will work with local development organisations, such as Syrian Telecentres Project-Salamieh, Telecentre & Studies Centre for Handicapped Research, Community organisers network.

- From an international point of view, Event 5 - Dissemination Event, which will take place in Costa Rica, will open up the border of the network: the event will be co-hosted by the Costa Rica Ministry of Cultural Affairs. The event will be live streamed in each of the ODA countries involved in the project: Brazil, Kenya, and Syria, during a 1 day dissemination event which will be organised simultaneously and which will allow the involvement of local activists, artists and organisations in the dissemination process.

- Finally, the GIS multimedia platform will ensure the network will reach an even wider impact: by documenting the experiences of the three in depth case studies, and by allowing other communities and activists working on the topic of marginalisation to get inspiration and to implement the guidelines in their particular context.