Training experience in ICT : a strategy for empowering women associations in the municipality of Pamplona (Norte de Santander, Colombia)

Abstract

This paper reports on a training/learning experience of a group of women members in women associations in the municipality of Pamplona, Norte de Santander, Colombia. This pedagogical experience is, in part, a transfer of a previous experience of digital literacy project, held in the municipality of Montsiá, semi-rural county located in the southern part of the autonomous community in Catalonia, Spain. The main objectives of this experience were the collective Empowering of women through the use of ICT and the recovery of historical memory. To develop the training process the researchers have chosen to use the feminist participatory action research methodology, IAPF (Feminist participatory action research methodology). This methodology facilitates the production of knowledge and generates a set of actions useful to a specific group of individuals. This empowers participants to use their self-generated knowledge in the pursuit of learning. Learning defined as the process of taking in the world around you and making sense of it (Johnston, 2007). IAP is a process that simultaneously includes training, scientific research and political action. It also considers critical analysis, diagnosis and practice situations as sources of knowledge, while allowing the empowerment of people in society who are actively involved in the research process. IAP involves the popularization of research techniques, with the dual role of the object, as a subject and protagonist. The emphasis of these workshops was on co-inquiry, thus empowering the women involved to generate their own knowledge through their own experiences. The impact of experiences (not just reflections) stresses the value of the feminist perspective of the issues discussed.