programmes
Our programmes contribute to creating a gender-equal world, online and on ground. We work at the intersection of gender, sexuality, and technology to enable women and gender and sexual minorities to build their capacity, knowledge, networks, and voice.
Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve achieved over the last five years.
Lives touched on the ground
Views online
Workshops
Partner organisations
‘Hedonism’, by Jasmine Dreyer (2015)
Gender and Technology
SexGenderTech looks at digital technologies through a feminist lens, exploring how technology shapes gender – and vice versa. We conduct workshops with people from marginalised communities, students, and grassroots activists. Our pathbreaking publications study the interplay of gender and tech. We advocate for more just policies around technology, and network with other organisations working on these issues across the globe.
Image credit: Anjali Menon
TechSakhi
Launched in 2022, TechSakhi is the first phone helpline that answers questions on digital safety in Hindi.
Women and gender minorities face various forms of abuse and violence in digital spaces, from trolling and threats on social media to harassing phone calls. Lack of information about digital safety also limits their access and exploration of these spaces.
With TechSakhi we’ve created a safe, empathetic space where responders answer queries on digital safety and online abuse or violence. Currently, TechSakhi runs Monday to Friday, 11 am to 7 pm.
Image credit: Upasana Agarwal
The Digital Everyday
A comprehensive learning experience that helps participants understand and navigate their relationships with technologies, and to probe larger questions of power, agency, equity, and justice. This 3-month online course, co-created with Design Beku and ArtEZ University of the Arts, started on 15 September 2022.
The Digital Everyday embraces feminist pedagogy and incorporates mentoring, co-creation, collaboration, and playlisting in the learning experience.
Deep Dives
Our award-winning digital imprint Deep Dives makes critical contributions to global discussions on big data, development, and gender and sexuality. The publication specialises in longform journalism, personal narrative, and occasional works of art, poetry, and fiction. We identify and support intersectional feminist writers, journalists, and artists to develop critical responses to and reportage around Big Data for Development projects and research.
Image credit: Alia Sinha
Comms Lab South Asia
The LGBTIQA+ community has been one of the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. CommsLab South Asia – Let it Dawn supports LGBTIQA+ activists in South Asia in reimagining rights advocacy and organising in a way that is both healing and empowering. It equips participants with holistic tools such as digital security, art healing, peer support training, digital strategising, among others to address online and offline threats.
The first edition of CommsLab South Asia took place in June-August 2022 with over 50 participants from India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
Image credit: Upasana Agarwal
Digital Gender Justice
We held a series of workshops, online and on-ground, exploring the concept of Digital Gender Justice with a total of 275 young women across five states. Held in July and August 2022, the workshops encouraged the participants to think about and discuss topics such as the gendered nature of digital experiences, digital gender norms, intersectional identities, privacy, and online gender-based violence, and to imagine the internet of their dreams.
Image credit: Alia Sinha
Internet In My Hands
Our Internet In My Hands workshops impart digital literacy and skills to people from marginalised communities. In 2021, we conducted workshops with 18 women domestic workers in West Bengal, most of whom had been deeply affected by a loss of livelihood during the pandemic. Our participants went on to train 250 more low-income women. Later in 2021-22, we trained nine queer activists in Gujarat, who then trained 50 other queer persons.
In August 2022, we trained 18 trans sex workers in Kolkata on digital security and privacy, as well as overall digital skills.
SMS from Priya
A curriculum for adolescent girls in Tamil Nadu that we had piloted in 2018 was scaled up and delivered to 3,500 recipients in 2022. The 12-week curriculum was delivered through SMS in Tamil, and included messages that touched on COVID as well as health precautions, schools reopening, and other topical content. The character of Priya, a teenage girl, was created as the narrator of these messages, which built an emotional connection with the recipients. The girls acknowledged greater awareness, and more confidence as a result of the initiative.
I helped my employer’s children to attend online classes during COVID. I receive a lot of appreciation from my employer, my family, and my community members for being digitally independent, which motivates me and boosts my confidence.
A participant in an Internet in My Hands workshop
Support us in empowering women, girls, and gender and sexual minorities to shape and inhabit digital spaces.