FROM: ELECTRONIC WITCHES
  TO: SPYFOOD@NEXT.COM.AU
  SUBJECT: ELECTRONIC WITCHES REPORT
  
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   [IMAGE] Electronic Witches was transformed in 1994 from a dream to a
   project that was pursued in women's spare time to receiving initial
   funding. The project started within the Women's Information and
   Documentation Center in Zagreb and became an independent project
   within the feminist movement in the Yugoslav successor states with
   special support from the Zagreb Women's Lobby and B.a.B.e.. (Be active
   Be emancipated, women's human rights group). This paper highlights
   Electronic Witches' achievements, experiences, forward looking
   strategy, and resource needs.
   
    Electronic Witches Communication Technology for Women
    
   
   
   Electronic Witches started working in June, 1994 with two women,
   working part time. Cecilia Hansen Poulsen left to study in England
   after three months and Kathryn Turnipseed continues to develop this
   project. We have trained seventy-two women who represent twenty-eight
   organizations. The groups we have worked with include the Center for
   Women War Victims, B.a.B.e., Little Step and the Anti-War Campaign in
   Croatia; Vive Zene, Medica Women's Therapy Center, and Zene 21 in
   Bosnia & Hercegovina, the Autonomous Women's Center against Sexual
   Violence, Women in Black, Arkadia and the Center for Girls in Serbia;
   and the League of Albanian Women, Doctors of the World, the Council
   for Defense of Human Rights and Freedom and the Club of Correspondents
   in Kosovo. We have produced gender sensitive training materials, and
   co-authored a user's guide to the communications software. Two women
   in Serbia and one woman in Bosnia & Hercegovina are now providing
   e-mail support to other women. We provided modems to three groups and
   in several locations we installed software and set up user accounts on
   the ZaMir network (the regional communication network which is
   affiliated with the Association for Progressive Communication).
   Electronic Witches works closely with the men who developed the ZaMir
   network and Kathryn is a member of the support staff in Belgrade,
   Pristine, and Zagreb.
   
   We advocate broader inclusion of women on the support teams. We post
   articles from our travels in e-mail conferences and with the help of
   friends have had them published in magazines. Kathryn attended the
   Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Preparatory meeting for the
   Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing and helped to draft
   amendments to the media and communications segment of the final
   document. Connections were made with women who are experienced
   advocates for women's right to access to and control of media and
   communications; this included women representing FIRE, Technomama,
   WEDO, Media Watch, and several journalists from Europe. Our training
   has supported women in overcoming their lack of confidence and
   discomfort with information technologies and we have undertaken to
   reach out to women with different computer ability and experience. We
   have witnessed many women's attitudes toward e-mail shift, from
   skepticism or distaste to curiosity or enthusiasm, as they watch their
   friends quickly incorporate e-mail into their work and personal
   communications. As peers easily learn to use e-mail many women's fears
   or insecurity about their capability to bend technology to their needs
   recede.
   
   There are already a handful of women who with the confidence which
   comes from using e-mail and a little additional training will be
   capable of training other women. This includes a woman who has
   recently discovered her aptitude for computers defying, as she joked,
   the stereotyped view "statistically I am too old to do this." Roughly
   one-third of women who we trained had little or no previous computer
   experience and many of the women who received training do not have
   access to a computer on a regular basis. Women's lack of experience
   was often expressed in shyness and lack of confidence. Women who have
   used typewriters for many years did not immediately see the linkage of
   skills as computer technology has been mysticized. Individual women
   expressed a high level of anxiety about "destroying" information
   exhibiting a belief that their inexperience would translate into
   accidentally deleting important information or breaking the computer.
   To overcome this women were encouraged to drag their fingers along the
   keyboard. Relief was visible when women recognized that virtually
   everything can be undone by selecting escape or restarting the
   computer. The amount of information available over e-mail often
   elicits exclamations of excitement and anticipation from many women.
   E-mail is seen as a mechanism to reduce the isolation under which a
   majority of women in the region are now forced to live. Many women
   during the training shared their ideas for how to use e-mail including
   one woman who plans to use the stories of women posted in APC women's
   conferences in a literacy program. By the end of each training session
   every woman had practiced reading, writing, and sending messages and
   conducting topic searches. A high retention level is unlikely in
   places where women's access to computers and modems is low or
   non-existent. Training sessions exposed that women continue to have
   unequal access to new technologies and women living in rural areas
   have less access to computer equipment and training than do women
   living in urban areas. Our experience also confirms our view that when
   women do have access to technology, trainers - many times who are men
   - often do not teach in a way that is relevant for women.
   
   Broader Learning Electronic Witches is afforded the opportunity to
   meet women from divergent backgrounds who are pursuing a diversity of
   life and work ambitions and living under widely varying levels of
   state violence. This provides a rich view into gender relations, which
   cut across ethnic, class, and urban/rural divisions. Universally women
   expressed frustration with the habit of the local and foreign media of
   making women visible only as symbols, victims or dependents. Rarely do
   journalists widen their view to include pictures of women in all our
   diversity taking effective action. We do not read about the lesbian
   who raised money to support a lesbian and gay human rights group; the
   woman who returned from exile to initiate a literacy program; or the
   woman who lives in a refugee camp and is learning to use computers.
   Travelling in Bosnia & Hercegovina, Croatia, Kosova and Serbia
   generates curiosity about how the militarization of society and being
   displaced from one's home effects gender relations, how women interact
   with the State and with intergovernmental organizations who have
   swooped in to "aid, protect and develop." We are curious about what
   gender stereotypes are transferred by international personnel, what
   commitment international agencies have to gender parity among its
   staff and in its programs, and how many organizations have development
   programs which involve women in meaningful roles. The status of women
   in each country can be assessed and the same story can be heard
   irrespective of geography. Regardless of the level of military
   activity women are losing rights, have less visibility in the public
   sphere and face militarisms narrow construction of femininity into
   sexualized woman or that of the stay at home caring wife and mother.
   
   Looking Forward ..Our experience to date has revealed the need to
   connect e-mail training to other computer skills and to other forms of
   communication. In addition to continuing our e-mail training in 1995
   we would like to:*Raise funds to support trainers in Kosova, Serbia,
   Bosnia & Hercegovina and Macedonia for 12 months.* Develop materials
   so that introductory computer training can be offered to women with
   little or no computer experience. *Include training on Pretty Good
   Privacy software to address women's concerns about police decoding of
   e-mail messages. *Raise funds for or secure donations of computers and
   modems. *Begin to work with women activists in Macedonia . *Work with
   women who are living in refugee camps. These possibilities will be
   refined collaboratively with women in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia,
   Kosovo, Macedonia, and Serbia who have been a part of our training to
   date. Recognizing that in crisis situations long-term goals are
   submerged in the urgency of the moment, Electronic Witches is acutely
   aware of the need to further our participatory working with women to
   develop goals and activities which address both practical/daily and
   structural/strategic needs. We are committed to genuinely involving
   wome n in utilizing communication technologies to strengthen our
   groups and to fully participate in the processes of social change.
   Resource Needs *Computers *High speed modems *Funding to support a
   regional network of trainers* Funding to participate in the Fourth
   World Conference on Women in Beijing, September 1995 Contributors
   Electronic Witches receives support from many individuals and
   organizations which makes our work possible.
   
   We would like to especially recognize Vesna K. and Sarah for believing
   in our capabilities when we were full of doubt. We appreciate the care
   and encouragement we receive from Lepa, Jelica and Violeta in
   Belgrade. Janet, Lisa and Igo make our work in Pristine fun and well
   organized. In Zenica we depend upon Selma, Duska and Kirsten for
   support and creative thinking. Mica and Biljana in Zagreb h ave
   enabled our work with their enduring patience and support. Electronic
   Witches receives tremendous support from the members of the ZaMir
   support teams in Zagreb, Belgrade, Pristine, and Sarajevo. Ognjen,
   Srdjan, Eric, Wam, Andreas, Burkie, Sasa, Miroslav, Michael, Saly,
   Akan, Meho, Murat, Mladen and Haris are constant in their willingness
   to answer our endless technical questions. Barbara (Virtual
   Sisterhood) and Sabine (FemNet) also provide answers to our technical
   questions and endless hours of discussion about gender dimensions of
   electronic communications. We are grateful for the material support we
   have received from the Danish Peace Foundation, the Delphi-Star
   project, Brad Wilkinson, Frank Wilkinson, Rich Montero and Oxfam.
   Contact Information Kathryn Turnipseed c/o B.a.B.e. Petreticev trg
   341000 Zagreb Croatia tel/fax +385 1 419 302
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   electronicwitches_zg@zamir-zg.ztn.zer.de