Elevating Women as Change Agents through MoJo

January 2020 - Women in Sri Lanka, whether young or adult, face intersecting disadvantages owing to gender, sexual identity, income and ethnic background. The perception and the reality of these elements have created a context of discrimination and grievance. On the other hand, the representation of women in Sri Lankan media has breached standards of ethical reporting as they tend to reinforce negative stereotypes. Sensationalism is one issue where gender sensitive reporting has got a huge beating. The technological development of media has not been able to address the gaps in gender justice. Then, how can one reach these women to voice their untold stories of agony? 

Chamalee Ahangama, a Project Officer at Women’s Education & Research Centre (WERC), Colombo attended a capacity building program for women’s organizations on mobile storytelling and digital advocacy called ‘Vibrant Voices’, which was launched by Sri Lanka Development Journalist Forum (SDJF) under the Media Empowerment for a Democratic Sri Lanka (MEND) Program in partnership with International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) and with the support of USAID. During the training, she realized that the best way to empower women themselves is through the knowledge of new technology and the increased presence on new media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. 

She was of the view that there are no thought provoking and insightful discussions happening in Sri Lanka regarding numerous hardships and issues confronted by women. She was not able to realize that women were discriminated based on gender, until she reached a certain age. While recalling a past incident of her childhood, she had to add this, “I was at a funeral and in an out-of-context manner, a few of my aunts told me that I was not walking like a girl. They placed a heavy book on my head and asked me to walk, balancing it. I was basically performing cat-walk, which I later realized that’s the gender expectation of a woman!” 

Women’s engagement is vital at all levels in order to reshape a conversation, change the dynamics and to make sure that their voices are heeded. In this context, facilitating them to access new technology is of vital importance. “It was really exciting and interesting to learn that a smartphone can do wonders to empower a community, particularly that of women. Thank you SDJF, for providing us with this wonderful opportunity, which no doubt, can highly contribute in the type of work we undertake, to build our own capacities through novel technologies like MoJo, and empower us”, Chamalee further added. 

Vibrant Voices Program aims to widen the space for Sri Lankan women and other gender issues in the media content by using new and social media tools. Chamalee is a lucid example to disprove that women are incapable of coming to grips with novel technologies. Right after the training program, she has taken the lead in opening a YouTube channel for WERC. They do a lot of programs and projects to empower women in all corners of the world and have documented them only in print. She has recognized the importance of documenting their work visually to raise awareness of a wider public in a more appetizing way. 

While increasing her presence on social media, she has applied the skills of MoJo to address the political impact of women’s online activism. She portrayed the challenges faced by women entering into politics in Sri Lanka in general and during their political campaigns in particular. She very aptly selected the only female candidate who contested the presidential election of Sri Lanka in 2019. Her MoJo story mirrored the struggle of women’s activism to be heard in decision-making processes of the country. In addition, women’s limited access to new technologies, censorship, and harassment were presented as some of the key challenges faced by women entering into politics in Sri Lanka. 

“If you peep into the history of WERC, during the past 37 years of its existence, there haven’t been any documented video production of the programs or workshops except for two or three DVDs. Prior to attending the training program, we have only maintained a Fb page, and never included ‘hashtags’ because we didn’t know the importance of them”, Chamalee recalled the past with a smile on her face.  

She also comes with the strong ideology that knowledge on reproductive health is essential for both girls and boys, and it should be taught in schools. After conducting a series of workshops for school children, she has produced a MoJo to emphasize the fact, that knowledge on reproductive health should be taught in a subtle and practical manner, not to merely disseminate knowledge about the body and its sexual matters only. The ultimate aim of this must be an attitudinal change towards gender. 

“Women can handle technology, and Vibrant Voices has already proved it”, added Chamalee. She agrees that women are physically less strong than men, and strongly believes that this gap can be filled through the knowledge of technology. Now she’s confident in the use of tools of MoJo in order to raise the voices of women and create a platform where women can address their concerns independently. This therefore is a call for action to all women across Sri Lanka, to become technologically empowered and be able to tackle gender inequalities with a view to empowering them all! 

Link to the drive which includes her MoJo productions: http://bit.do/fonUt