How to organise a Take Back The Tech! Campaign

1) Get together with friends, networks or partners

• Find a few people with whom you’d like to organise a campaign. They can be as few and as many people as you like, as long as you share the same energy and commitment to take action.
• If there are organisations or people already organising 16 days of activism campaigns, see if you can partner with them and build the campaign through a Take Back The Tech! action or activity.

2) Decide on an issue

• What are the critical violence against women issues faced in your context locally (e.g. school, neighbourhood, workplace, city) or nationally?
• How does the right to communicate, find out information, express an opinion, share knowledge and form networks or communities relate to them? This can either be either in a contributing way, or as an opportunity for addressing them. For example, there are increasing cases of women and girls being stalked and harassed through their mobile phones. At the same time, they are able to access information on the internet on how to deal with this situation. A possible call for action is to recommend that mobile operators enable an SMS-reporting of such abuses where they are able block further attempts of communicating from the harasser’s number.
• If something is already receiving public attention, you can generally count on more support and impact. Are there any violence against women issues that are currently being debated, or a change in public policy context that can be used to call for greater shared responsibility to end violence against women? For example, a case that is being followed by the media, a change in government, a new minister in charge of women’s rights or ICT, recent budget announcements, a new law or policy etc. Make the connections with ICT and communication rights.

3) Think of an action

• Be creative, strategic and challenging. You can also be playful! This can help you think of actions that are engaging and interesting for people to take part in, and can also help you get more media attention for greater impact.
• What are you skills? What kinds of access do you have to different kinds of ICT tools and spaces? How can you mix and match different kinds of skills, tools and spaces together to form an action? For example, one of the Take Back The Tech! actions is to create postcards that are uploaded digitally, that could be sent through the website, posted to friends, or to public officials to raise awareness.
• How can you reach the people you want to reach through your action? If they are women users of ICT, to which spaces do they go and what do they do? How can you catch their attention and commitment there through your action? If they are decision-makers, find out who they are exactly, and how can creative use of ICT both reach them directly and through the media?
• Write up your action in any way you think most effective. When we write up daily actions, we try to: a) state the problem and make the connection to ICTs - be it technology, policy or communications rights; b) state the action; and c) give clear instructions about how to carry out the action.

4) Plan the details

• Figure out what needs to be done, and who will be doing it. Divide up the tasks between partners so everyone has a part to play in the campaign, and that you collectively own it.
• Depending on the scale of your action, you might want to think about when it is happening, what are the materials you need, who can help produce them, how will you let people know, do you have a media strategy, are there permits needed and time needed to apply for it, will there be security risks and how will you respond to them, do you need sponsorship and how can sponsors also be partners in your campaign, etc.