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