Uganda: The Gender-Tech Initiative

The Gender Initiatives Convention.

Empower women, young girls and human rights defenders with skills to thwart online censorship, promote research, and mitigate threats of digital attacks and online harassment in Uganda

Project description

The Gender-Tech Initiative Uganda is an organization that started in 2015. We drew our inspiration from Rita, a female journalist who had to leave the profession because of cyber harassment. Her situation was so bad that she even contemplated suicide. Rita's story suggested the value of an umbrella organization that could offer cyber safety awareness training. The Gender-Tech Initiative Uganda was formalized in 2016 and is currently registered as a Not for profit Organization in Uganda. 

We are a holistic and gender-focused organization that aims to empower women, young girls and human rights defenders with skills to thwart online censorship, promote research, offer digital safety trainings and awareness to mitigate threats of digital attacks and protect them from online harassment.
The Gender-Tech Initiative Uganda envisions a society where female journalists, school girls and other human rights defenders can have a safe online space without fear of being trolled or bullied or harassed online.

Our core values are: Be Secure, Be committed, Be innovative, Be of integrity and loyalty.

The Gender-Tech Initiative-Uganda was established to:

  • Empower Human rights Defenders and make sure they have an up-to-date know-how on how to recognize and mitigate a cyber-threat.
  • Identify and eliminate cyber threats by strengthening the most vulnerable link in the chain.

To keep the Gender-Tech Initiative Uganda in line with its mission and objectives, we have been holding dialogues on digital safety with many journalists and university students to awaken the online safety skills in them now that almost everything has moved online. We do this with our partner organizations, institution and other actors whose activities are in-line with what we do.

Project outcome

Current needs:

  • Curating and developing content for Blog post and Social media branding.
  • Research
  • Fundraising/Grant proposal writing.
  • Website configuration.
  • Other ideas that can help the organization grow.

Ongoing Projects:

  • Monthly Digital security Dialogues with Students, journalists and partners.
  • Monthly Tweet-chat on Digital safety.

Project details

Timing, eligibility and other details
Length of commitment About a semester (3-5 months)
Start time Any time
Level of collaboration Individual student project
Benefits Academic Credit, Volunteer
Eligibility All undergraduate students
Speaker interacting with a participant.

Core partners

  • Ruth Atim, Executive Director, The Gender Initiative-Uganda

Project mentor

Mara Huber

Associate Dean, Undergraduate Research and Experiential Learning; Director, Experiential Learning Network

Phone: (716) 829-2834

Email: mbhuber@buffalo.edu

Have a question about this project? Mara Huber hosts drop-in office hours on Zoom every Monday and Thursday from 9 a.m. until 10 a.m. 

Global NGO Project

This project is for students interested in collaborating with a global Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).

Please be sure you identify your project as a Global NGO Project when you sign up to start the digital badge.

Start the project

  1. Email the project mentor using the contact information above to express your interest and get approval to work on the project. (Here are helpful tips on how to contact a project mentor.)
  2. After you receive approval from the mentor to start this project, click the button to start the digital badge. (Learn more about ELN's digital badge options.) 
Start the Digital Badge

Preparation activities

Once you begin the digital badge series, you will have access to all the necessary activities and instructions. Your mentor has indicated they would like you to also complete the specific preparation activities below. Please reference this when you get to Step 2 of the Preparation Phase. 

  1. Examine the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the history of the framework. Then select one SDG to focus on as you work through your project.
  2. Download and complete this PowerPoint template.