Egypt
DIGITAL GRASSROOTS-AMBASSADORS PROGRAM
Social inclusion Finalist
Digital Grassroots Ambassadors program is an 8 week long capacity building course where young people between the ages of 14 and 29 are trained and mentored in using the internet to resolve problems in their community. This is followed by 4 weeks of mentorship where we connect our Ambassadors to mentors who are experts in the Internet Governance field. As part of the training phase, ambassadors are required to hold a weekly community engagement exercise where they share their learnings with their immediate community.
Our objectives include:
CAPACITY BUILDING OF YOUTH IN INTERNET GOVERNANCE
We accomplish this through the Digital Grassroots Ambassadors Program and the Digital Grassroots Community Leaders Program, in which we spend 4 weeks training our Ambassadors about the value of Internet in the context of developing communities, and in the following 4 weeks, we connect our top-performing ambassadors to top experts in the field of Internet Governance for mentorship.
INCREASE DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP IN UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES
In our programs, Ambassadors participate in Community engagement exercises in which they reach out to the community to address and talk about internet related concerns as well as propose solutions. Beyond our programs, we have organized trainings such as Kenya Youth Coalition in Internet Governance, Arusha Womens School of Internet Governance, Mozilla Sprint, in 2018 and the Nigeria Youth Internet Governance forum in 2019, among more.
GROW A NETWORK ON GLOBAL YOUTH ADVOCATES SHAPING THE INTERNET
Digital Grassroots runs a Digital Natives Forum, a platform for young people to connect, have cultural exchanges, rally support for causes supporting the underserved, and sharing opportunities for continued participation of young people in Internet Governance. Thus far, our Digital Natives Forum has over 1000 members from across the globe.
FOSTER PARTICIPATION OF YOUTH IN INTERNET GOVERNANCE POLICY DEVELOPMENT
Digital Grassroots offers communal support for young people to participate in Internet Governance issues. After only two cohorts of training young people on Internet Literacy, at least 15 of our Digital Grassroots Ambassadors attended the Internet Governance Forum in Paris, France in 2018. We launched a Communique: Youth Resolutions in Internet Governance. We provided a booth for stakeholders to learn on inclusion of youth, recommended our young Community Leaders for key panels and one of our co-founders gave a speech on youth participation at the high level closing ceremony at IGF2018 at UNESCO headquarters.
PROVIDE MENTORSHIP TO COMMUNITY LEADERS ON INTERNET LEADERSHIP
Training on its own is not enough to encourage an underrepresented youth to build resilience necessary for innovation and breaking barriers especially in regions rife with digital rights abuses. We provide four weeks mentorship to Ambassadors who have successfully completed the training phase. The mentorship phase includes two conference calls, a report on issues affecting the Ambassadors community and possible solutions, as well as sessions of networking and problem solving.
ADVOCATE FOR YOUTH VOICES ON DECISION MAKING TABLES
In 2018, we started a petition asking Internet Stakeholders to include youth in key discussions that are shaping the health of the internet. This was signed by 300 youth in Internet Governance. As part of Mozilla Festival facilitators, we launched the Digital Rights Monopoly board based on digital rights scenarios our young people face in their respective communities. In this way, we advocate for more participation of other stakeholders in including youth and create more capacity building programs for the underrepresented. We also signed an Open Letter to the G20 asking them to bring internet issues to the forefront during the G20 in 2018, and in 2018, we supported an Open Letter condemning the actions of the Venezuelan government to shut down the internet.
IDENTIFY AND PROVIDE SUPPORT TO YOUNG INTERNET LEADERS FROM UNDERSERVED REGIONS
Digital Grassroots prides itself in being started by young people under 25 years old, and 80% female led. All our programs always have a 50/50 gender representation and we accommodate young people who would otherwise have had no training or knowledge about Internet Governance. Our work is of pure passion and youth energy because we have had no financial support and still managed to reach to young people in 40 countries across the globe through the internet. Through our program, more young people from marginalized communities have a platform to shape the future of internet in their communities.
What impact has the initiative had or is expected to have?
Digital Grassroots runs an open program in which we work with young people in at least 40 countries to increase digital citizenship and Internet Governance participation in local communities. We achieve this through our Internet Literacy Course, Community Engagement, and Advocacy in our Digital Grassroots Ambassadors Program.
Digital Grassroots (DIGRA) was born from a meeting of young people in the Internet Society Youth@IGF 2017 program. DIGRA co-founders are from 11 countries and work over the internet to increase representation of young people from underserved regions in the space of Internet Governance.
In only one year, we have done the following, to name a few;
Held 3 cohorts of the Ambassadors Program. The third cohort was done in French. (See cohort 1 Outcome Report attached )
Published a Communique on Youth Resolutions in Internet Governance (See Communique on Youth Resolutions on our website)
Gave speech at the official closing ceremony of the Internet Governance Forum IGF 2018 at UNESCO in Paris, France to represent youth stakeholders
Organized a Booth at the IGF Village during the Internet Governance Forum in Paris
Increased participation of youth in Internet matters by training 300 young people in Internet Literacy, mentoring at least 100, and reaching out to at least 1000 people in 40 communities in our combined cohorts
Created a Digital Rights Monopoly game to educate others on digital rights abuses. We launched this at Mozilla Festival in 2018. (Read about it on our website)
Created an Internet Literacy Course responding to the context of underrepresented communities with topics of ‘Internet for Security’, ‘Internet for Social Life’ and ‘Internet for Economy.’
What is unique about this initiative? Can it be scaled-up and replicated in other places?
The Digital Grassroots is a unique and open Initiative, we in fact encourage other youths to replicate the program in their communities with full support from our team. The project is unique in that it is completely youth-led and it focuses on the needs of underserved regions around the world. We are also unique in our approach as outlined below:
ACCESSIBILITY
The Internet has gone a long way from its invention as a basic tool for communication to now being a fundamental necessity to economies fueled by digitization. Young people (primarily millennials and generation Z) make up a majority of Internet users. Internet access generates billions of data daily ranging from creation of email accounts, making use of the countless available online services (services offered by tech businesses such as Uber, Facebook, Google etc) to creating online content such as images, video, text and audio files. As digital natives, young people need not only to access the internet but also be given the power to shape it in the development of policies relating to how their data is used, secured, accessed and managed. Digital Grassroots is working to bridge the gap in access by building local champions who will increase digital citizenship in their local communities.
BOTTOM UP APPROACH
With each passing year, we see how more and more, youth have been using the Internet as a tool for justice and social change. Youth, like the young Ambassadors of Digital Grassroots and countless more online, have led advocacy campaigns to address issues within their communities when their traditional judiciary system has failed them. When the openness of the network has been threatened in regions which have undergone Internet shutdowns, the youth community is always at the forefront of harnessing the power of social media to advocate for access to the Internet. This is testament of youth harnessing the bottom-up approach element to shape the culture of the internet. Through the Digital Grassroots Ambassadors program, we are creating our Internet Literacy course in multiple languages and encouraging localization of content so that everyone can have an equal chance to shape the internet even in their own local language to increase diversity on the internet.
INCLUSION
Even though youth are digital natives and provide economic advantage to conglomerates through our use of the internet, young people are not included in the decision making processes relevant to the network. Youth are often times absent from shaping Internet Governance issues and determining the future of the internet. This can be largely attributed to a
lack of digital literacy and awareness about youth participation in Internet governance. Core principles of the Internet such as decentralization, privacy, security, web literacy and inclusion, are not within reach especially in underserved communities. Poor internet connectivity, lack of electricity, computer illiteracy and lack of capacity building programs are some of the key reasons for the lack of inclusion. As a youth led initiative, we have gathered resources as a youth group, to create opportunities for young people through networking, collaboration, and gender equality and equity in our selection processes for our programs.
CAPACITY BUILDING
Digital Grassroots works primarily with young people from these underrepresented communities by engaging them in a 4 weeks Internet Literacy course. This online course is aimed at educating course participants on key aspects of Internet governance with respect to Sustainable Development Goals in the context of ‘Internet for economy’, ‘Internet for social life’ and Internet for social life.’ Our course is offered for free via the internet and offers four weeks of mentorship with Internet Governance experts. Young people with no prior experience on internet issues are offered the opportunity to be community leaders and address current issues of Internet Governance globally. Our program is not funded and we still managed to train 300 youth and mentor a 100 in our first year. We are continuing with our Community Leaders program this year.
NETWORK OF NETWORKS
The DIGRA community creates an amazing global network of young people who are passionate about advocating for a healthy Internet. By making use of numerous online services, resources and applications, the youth members of DIGRA have been able to set up and manage a diverse and inclusive community of upcoming Internet leaders. Through shared information and experiences about the Internet and its governance in their various countries, the DIGRA community have showcased a global network of young people who use the Internet to better the Internet.