In times when power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of large social media platforms and their decisions impose setbacks to human rights, many of us are concerned about the balance between the potential risks and benefits of being connected to the internet. This newsletter edition serves as a reminder from grassroots communities who are using connectivity to improve the well-being of those around them.
Such is the case of women using connectivity as an enabler of social entrepreneurship, of Indigenous nations raising their voices online to defend their people and lands, and of community networks that approach connectivity guided by the dreams of real people, aiming to support their lives in harmony with the environment. Learning their stories inspires us to maintain hope, while reminding us that this is a fundamental step towards building better futures – online and offline.
Welcome to the 77th monthly round-up of developments impacting your local access networks and community-based initiatives.
Routing for Communities podcast
- “For us, we start with the people, the people's needs, whether they are few in some isolated place, those are the people we want to bring to digital inclusion.” The quote is from James Nguo, the director of Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN). In July 2023, ALIN was able to get one of the first approvals from Kenya’s regulatory agencies and obtained a licence to implement a community network in the Rift Valley region in Kenya. Do you want to know more about it? Listen to the podcast episode “Celebrating community networks making change in Kenya and around the world”.
- The Routing for Communities podcast is available on this page, as well as on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The first season features 12 episodes, describing experiences of communities from around the world.
Community networks news and stories
- Seeding change: Tanda is a Swahili word for “to spread”, and that is what Tanda CBO is determined to do. This Kenya-based organisation developed a project to coordinate actions and stakeholders to promote community-centred connectivity initiatives and digital inclusion in the country. Read more.
- Connecting communities: Find out more about how Hello World is creating confident digital users in Uganda. Read more.
- A project led by the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia (ISEA) is developing models of community networks linked to social enterprise and sustainable local economic development, while exploring how these models respond to the challenge of sustainability of community networks. Four evolving models have been developed in Bangladesh, China and the Philippines. Read more about the project here, as well as in this synthesis paper.
- In Argentina, the Quintana and San Isidro Fibre Optic Network is taking the initial steps to bring connectivity and digital inclusion to this community. In the words of the organisation AlterMundi , this network “is not just a technical infrastructure, it is an engine of change.” Read more. [Available in Spanish.]
- “Red Ovejas Verdes” – or the "Green Sheep Network" – is the name chosen for the first community and communications network inaugurated in Boyacá, a department in the Colombian Andes. The network will serve a community where an environmental initiative led by women and families fights against large-scale mining in the region, which threatens their water resources. Read more. [Available in Spanish.]
Gendered experiences
- Women weaving paths of resistance across fenced lands and restricted skies in Colombia: Learn more about how women weavers from the Nasa community and the Jxa’h Wejxia Casil Community Network support each other. Read more.
- Growing up in a small village in Murang’a County, Kenya, Ruth Njeri had nearly no access to the digital world. Today, she is the lead engineer of the Tanda Community Network in Kibera and is working to empower local women with technical knowledge, new skills and increased opportunities. Read more.
- Empowering women entrepreneurs through handicrafts and digital inclusion: Artisans form the backbone of India’s rural non-farm economy and the handicrafts industry is largely powered by women. Among these women is a passionate social entrepreneur who, through her digital business service centre, has supported over 150 rural women entrepreneurs. Read more.
- Reflections from the AWID Forum 2024: In this article, the co-director of Weaving Liberation, Laurence Meyer, reflects on the power of feminist movements from the Global Majority, sharing insights from her experiences at the latest AWID Forum. Among other things, she highlights the abundance of work and solutions that have been put in place in different regions to build community-centred connectivity and challenge patriarchal structures of technology making. Read more.
Enabling policy and regulation
- In the Philippines, the National Workshop on Community-Centered Connectivity Initiatives was held on 11 and 12 December 2024, building a community of practitioners and advocates towards developing a country strategy for policy development, capacity building, gender integration and collective appropriation of digital technologies. To find out more about its highlights read more here and watch this inspiring video.
- How do we conciliate “access” with “meaningful”? In reflecting on this question, this report from the IGF 2024 Policy Network on Meaningful Access presents some successful case studies on community networks, such as the School of Community Networks in Indonesia and the creation of the Licensing and Shared Spectrum Framework for Community Networks in Kenya. Read more.
- Brazil's telecoms regulatory agency Anatel announced in December last year that it would be holding a public consultation and reviewing community network regulation. According to Anatel council member Vicente Aquino, the aim of this review is to obtain more resources and data for the expansion of these networks, benefiting the population living in remote areas in the country. Read more. [Available in Portuguese.]
- Meaningful connectivity: What creates a successful community network? This article examines the types of community network currently operating around the world and identifies the principles, features and policies that enable their success. Read more.
Publications, research and toolkits
- Global definitions of connectivity fall short when expressing community-centred perspectives, because they are guided by top-down mechanisms. The reality is that grassroots communities have a strong understanding of what is meaningful or of high value to them. This important reflection is part of a new paper from the Local Networks initiative (LocNet) called “Local services and technologies: Meaningful connectivity from a community-centred perspective”. Read more.
- Recently, LocNet released two other publications that reflect on what "meaningful" means from a community-centred perspective. The first of them is the Principles for community-centred connectivity initiatives, and the second is the Typology of community-centred connectivity initiatives.
- “Cybersecurity in community networks: Securing the commons” is the title of the latest outcome of the UN IGF Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity. The publication presents five papers that explore different aspects of threats and alternatives, as well as perspectives on digital care that could help communities mitigate risks and maximise benefits when connecting to the internet. Read more.
- A guide recently published by the Earth Defenders Toolkit aims to support those starting a community network who have chosen to use wireless technologies. It focuses on the LibreRouter, a device that makes this task simpler and faster. Read more.
Events
- The fifth biennial conference “InDigital V: Indigenous Media across Abya Yala” will bring together Indigenous media makers, media trainers and specialists in Indigenous studies from 19 to 20 February 2025 in Washington DC. Read more.
- The 13th edition of RightsCon will be taking place from 24 to 27 February 2025 in Taipei and online. Find more information on the event and how to register here.
- A session at RightsCon taking place on 27 February at 17:00 UTC will focus on building community networks in rural and Indigenous communities and preserving local cultures. Check out the complete programme here.
- The Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) is an annual intergovernmental forum happening from 25 to 28 February in Bangkok, Thailand. Read more.
Funding opportunities
- The fifth call of the NGI Zero Commons Fund, aimed at reclaiming the public nature of the internet, was launched in early December and will close soon, on 1 February 2025. Find the eligibility criteria here, the guide for applicants here, and the platform for submitting proposals here.
- Meet nine projects awarded funding by Internet Society Foundation to expand internet access and connectivity globally. Read more.
Community networks learning repository
This repository is a collective online space to store and exchange resources that can be useful in training processes, focused on materials made for and by community networks.
In the repository, you can find more information about the National School of Community Networks in Indonesia, run by Common Room Networks Foundation, as well as check out some inspiring pictures from it.
This newsletter is part of the Local Networks initiative (LocNet), a collective effort led by APC and Rhizomatica in partnership with grassroots communities and support organisations in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. It aims to directly support meaningful community-centred connectivity initiatives, while contributing to an enabling ecosystem for their emergence and growth.
Previous editions of this newsletter are available here.
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