Community-driven sustainable development through technology-enabled education, capacity building and collective action: Building digital learning models for empowerment and mobilization

• In Event: Challenging the perception of AI and edTech

Proposal

Abstract

This paper discusses opportunities in transforming information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) frameworks for sustainable and thriving communities within low- and middle-income countries. The goal of this work is to provide a constructivist and critical approach when exploring ICT4D interventions and frameworks supporting community development through technology-enabled learning models for sustainable development education, capacity building and collective action. The paper provides evidence from a mixed methods study in Brazil to understand differential ICT access and use patterns among favela mobilizers in Rio de Janeiro. Evidence shows opportunities to transform ICT4D frameworks that build on themes expressed as building social capital, digital capacity and literacy, democratization of ICT, and collective digital empowerment. The promise of ICT4D and community development efforts lie within emancipatory learning models that empower community mobilizers to leverage and transform ICT tools and affordances that serve them, their community, and others worldwide.


Introduction

This work is the last phase of a three-phase project and response to the changing context resulting from the global pandemic of COVID-19. The first phase of this project, presented at the CIES 2020 Conference, included a locally relevant literature review, methods and expected findings focused on examining the relationship between the use of ICT4D and community mobilizers from Brazilian favelas in the peripheries of Rio de Janeiro. Weeks before presenting this works, the world shut down and moved toward more digital interactions. Information and communication technologies would take the center stage and would be deemed essential for daily activities further marginalizing communities and exposing digital inequities. Community organizing, instruction and reporting within Rio de Janeiro’s favelas were not originally connected online and relied on large, in-person organizing. The mixed-methods study was redesigned to accommodate virtual and online data collection and collaboration in a community-based, participatory action study.

Context

The Brazilian favela is best defined as historically marginalized areas characterized by one, “neighborhoods that emerge from an unmet need for affordable housing; two, established and developed with no outside or governmental regulation; three, established and developed by individual residents (no centralized or outside ‘developers’); and four, continuously evolving based on culture and access to resources, jobs, knowledge, and the city (Williamson, 2019). This work was done in collaboration with Catalytic Communities, an “empowerment, communications, think tank, and advocacy NGO working since 2000 in support of Rio’s favelas” (CatCom, 2020). As a collaborator, I was given access to a network of over 600 community organizers, communicators, and leaders across over 150 initiatives throughout Rio de Janeiro favelas. The Sustainable Favela Network initiatives fall within 7 Working Groups with various focus on favela sustainability including (1) solid waste, (2) gardens and reforestation, (3) environmental education, (4) renewable energy, (5) cultural heritage conservation, (6) income generation, and (7) water and sewage. Each Working Group held LIVE sessions as a means of support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each LIVE session shares principal concerns and solutions that were analyzed in the Brazilian historical and political context.

Methods

A mixed methods study, using a community-based participatory action research approach using Slack, Zoom, Facebook Live, YouTube and WhatsApp to communicate and collect data on the ground during the pandemic. The Sustainable Favela Network (SFN) group organized various LIVE sessions bringing community members from various favelas to share thoughts, ideas and experiences, which served to collaboratively build an appropriate survey instrument. The survey was administered to all SFN members (favela mobilizer) to collect data on differential ICT access and use patterns and following up with interviews through WhatsApp voice messaging.

The purpose for mixing methods is for complementarity. The methods included an asset-based community development approach. The methods were collaboratively developed and data were made available for discussion and interpretation with the SFN network members and community.

Findings

Findings show how challenges with connectivity and access to information were exacerbated by the global pandemic. Favela mobilizers were found to leverage and build social capital to meet ICT needs, create more democratic ICT processes and understandings of ICT ownership, and develop mobile learning models to build capacity and digital literacy to empower community mobilizers for self-efficacy and collective action.

Implications

Reflecting on the challenges and findings of the study, ICT4D implementation frameworks can benefit from understanding local community mobilizer’s emancipatory praxis collaboration to re-imagine ICT4D processes and understandings that transform education for sustainable development to resist and prevent future global crises among disproportionately affected communities (Freire, 2000; Hopkins & McKeown, 2002; Ledwith, 2005; Meyers, Erickson, & Small, 2013; Cullen et al., 2015; Nemer, 2015; Sein et al., 2019; Williamson, 2019; Glassman, 2020).

Author

• Armando Jose Torres, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign