Women of the Balkans Enter Open Source

The concept of Open Source is becoming increasingly popular among NGOs. However, NGO activists are seldom IT specialists, and this is where the problem begins. Diving into Linux and its applications means that previously acquired Windows knowledge often enough proves useless, and a lot of time needs to be invested in learning.

Working women in particular lack this time since their traditional home and family role leaves them with less leisure time than men. Moreover, professional guidance is seldom available, and often far too expensive; due to limited bandwidth, downloading Linux distributions off the Web is seldom an option.

At the end of the Eclectic Tech Carnival, /etc, in Belgrade/Serbia-Montenegro July 11–18, it came as no surprise that distribution DVDs and Knoppix CDs went like hot cakes. The event, a joint effort by the Amsterdam based NGO Genderchangers and local NGO “Zene na delu” (“Women at work”), provided local women with the opportunity to get started with Linux and Open Source software in a mono-educative and truly international environment (teachers came from 12 countries).

Apart from Linux installation and command line sessions, Perl and CGI basics, introductions to Gimp, OpenOffice and Mozilla, hardware and security workshops (including iptables for the advanced) and the like, cultural events had an important place on the agenda, among them the innovative online theater by Helen Varley Jamieson and company, using their own Open Source software Upstage. These performances were also open to men.

While most participants in Belgrade were young women, a similar Open Source training organized by the Women’s Information Technologies Transfer project (WiTT) in cooperation with the Internet Rights Bulgaria Foundation and held in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia, July, 31 to August, 1 mainly attracted women aged 40–45. Organizer Christina Haralanova attributes this to “the boom of women in technologies during the socialist period”. In contrast to the Belgrade event, this one was aimed explicitly at women representatives from the Bulgarian NGO sector.

http://etc.genderchangers.org/info/current_index.html

http://www.upstage.org.nz/

http://www.witt-project.net/en