During a period of approximately eight months, member organizations from the DRN will be reflecting about how they implement social justice values in their projects and initiatives. These organizations share a common understanding: in order to build a more inclusive digital ecosystem, they must first gain clarity about their own values, address internal practices and challenges, and authentically embody these principles before engaging with external partners and communities.
The intersection of digital resilience and social justice is fundamental to the Network’s identity. It has taken some time to arrive at the point where this reflection can be made: there was in-depth previous work in building trust, identifying common ground and beginning to implement projects together. Now that the foundations are built, the organizations considered it important to ask themselves honest questions about how to implement effective actions that reflect their values as a group. A consultancy process led by expert Ashanut Okille, will help asking these questions:
- How does each organization understand the social justice values, and what actions are they taking?
- What lessons and good practices have they garnered from their own implementation of values that can be leveraged by the wider network?
- How can the Network meaningfully operationalize these values into its projects and initiatives?
When speaking about values, there are some principles that all members share and actively work to defend and strengthen:
- Equity, diversity and inclusion.
- Feminist principles and perspectives to fight against patriarchal and male-centric paradigms.
- Anti-racist and anti-colonial principles and actions.
- Anti-ableism.
One of the objectives of the consultancy is to gather the existing knowledge that organizations have in these areas and transform it into tangible information that they can use to inform their decision making and their actions. The consultancy will also look at the Network level to help members to imagine how social justice values can be embedded into the diverse projects that they are building together. None of this can be done without listening to the voices of experts and stakeholders in the field, so the work will involve consultation with external partners, especially those that work on anti-ableism initiatives.
This is an ongoing reflection that the Network wants to share with the ecosystem. There are many ways of adopting values-based perspectives, and all of them can light the way for decision-making. As the organizations keep an open dialogue with experts in the fields of inclusion and anti-ableism, we will be sharing findings and reflections about this learning process.
