Introduction
Part I: Case Studies
1.1 Introduction to Case Studies
1.2 Women’sNet
1.3 Kubatana
1.4 Satellife
1.5 Global Teenager Project
1.6 Malico VSAT Connectivity Project
1.7 HP i-Community
1.8 Arid Lands Information Network
1.9 CPSI - Dokoza Project
1.10 SchoolNet Namibia
1.11 Ekowisa
Part II: Toolkits
2.1 Introduction to Toolkits
2.2 Gender Evaluation Methodology
2.3 The Martus Human Rights Bulletin System
2.4 NGO-in-a-Box
2.5 Strategic Technology Planning
2.6 Building community wireless connectivity in developing countries
Glossary
Acknowledgements
Credits
Using ICTs to collate and disseminate human rights information (Page 1)
The Martus Human Rights Bulletin System
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3Introduction
Information is the single most valuable asset of human rights organisations, serving as a powerful tool to combat the proliferation of human rights violations. Information about such violations brings attention to the plight of victims and justice for the actions of perpetrators. Local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) use information to focus media attention, raise awareness and political pressure, and help deliver justice in the form of truth commissions, courts and tribunals. The success of human rights campaigns depends acutely on having reliable information.
Information is vital to the work of human rights organisations and yet they face a number of challenges and threats in collecting, organising and securing it. NGOs keep records using different methods, ranging from hand- or typewritten notes to computerised spreadsheets, resulting in inconsistent and haphazard record-keeping that is difficult to share within the human rights sector. In addition, information stored locally in computer or paper format is vulnerable to theft, loss or destruction. At one human rights organisation in Sri Lanka, for example, termites destroyed seven years of collected violation information that was stored in paper form.
To solve this problem, Benetech has developed the Martus Human Rights Bulletin System, an open source information management tool designed to assist human rights organisations in collecting, safeguarding, organising and disseminating information about human rights abuses. It enables grassroots NGOs to securely store their records on off-site servers with easy-to-use software, preserving crucial evidence for research, investigation and prosecutions.
Martus is general enough that it can be used in many kinds of social injustice as that require secure documentation of information. Martus software is designed to be useful to an activist with minimal computer skills, collecting the essential raw material of human rights action: the personal experiences and testimonies of victims and witnesses to human rights violations.
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