ANNOUNCEMENT: Women's Electronic Network Training Workshop
Africa (WENT-Africa 2003)

Hosted by APC-Africa-Women
http://www.apcafricawomen.org

29th March 4th April 2003, Cape Town, South Africa

** Now Accepting Applications **
See below for an application form

The Association for Progressive Communications-Africa-Women (APC-
Africa-Women) is a network of organisations and individuals that work
to empower African women's organisations to access and use
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for equality and
development. APC-Africa-Women is the Africa regional programme of
APC's Women's Networking Support Programme.

Working with women in Africa and all over the world, APC-Africa-
Women focuses on African women's empowerment through information
facilitation, regional support, lobbying and advocating around gender
and ICTs, delivering ICT training, conducting research into gender and
ICTs and participating in regional and global events.

WENT Africa 2003 training workshop aims to build the capacities of
women and their organisations to utilise new Information and
Communication Technologies in social development work and policy
advocacy. The workshop offers two parallel instructional tracks from
which participants can choose the most appropriate for their training
needs and two sessions in which all workshop participants will be
involved.

Track 1.
1. (a)"Housekeeping" for your computer - using PKZIP, virus checks,
opening attachments, file management etc.

1. (b)e-mail List management how to run an effective online meeting.

OR

Track 2.

Action Applications. The Association for Progressive Communication
(APC) open source software for web content management. This track
will demonstrate Action Applications, train in the basics of building a
site using Action Applications in the context of building a site
strategically and sharing content.

Tracks in which all will participate:

Track 3
Repackaging of information, convergence of old and new technologies
with a focus on radio.

Track 4.
Gender and ICT policy what are the issues?

All participants will engage in hands-on training. The instructional
tracks will be led by an all-women training team who have extensive
experience in ICTs for women's empowerment.

WENT Africa 2003 is open to all women whose organisations play or
will play a significant role in promoting the use of information and
communication technology to enhance women's role and capacity in
social and policy advocacy, as well as to strengthen women's
organisations and networks in Africa.

WENT Africa 2003 will use the Asia and Pacific Women's Electronic
Network Training Workshop as a model and methodology. Asian WENT
has proved to be a highly popular and successful methodology and has
been held annually since 1999. We also see this as a potentially
beneficial South-South partnership and skills sharing exercise.

GOALS

The goals of the training workshop are:

* To train women's information providers in the effective and
strategic use of computer and Internet tools.
* To deepen African women's organisations understanding of
the gender issues in ICT policy work in order to encourage
wider engagement of gender-focussed civil society
organisations involvement.
* To increase the level of cooperation and networking among
women's information providers and existing women's
information networks in the region.
* To promote the appropriate use of information and
communication technology in the regional women's
movement.
* To train women's information providers who will be able to
assist other women in the use of Internet services and tools.
* To begin building an African women's ICT trainers network.

ELIGIBILITY
------------------------------------------------------
The Training Workshop is open to women based in Africa who meet the
following criteria:

1. Active involvement in her organisation's information work. Preference
is given to information officer/staff and experience in women's
network/s.

2. Organisations engaged in any of the following:

(a) information production and sharing,
(b) policy and social advocacy work,
(c) community outreach and organising for women's empowerment,
(d) networking
(e) training.

3. Has basic to intermediate computer-literacy.

4. Fair to good knowledge of English language.

5. Willingness to participate in a women's information network in Africa.

6. Willingness to share the knowledge, skills and resources she will
acquire from the training with other women.

7. Willingness to work in a group-focused environment and process.

8. Be able to participate from 29th March 4th April 2003 (inclusive)

LOCATION

Cape Town, South Africa.

WORKING LANGUAGE
The working language of the workshop will be English. Fair
comprehension of spoken and written English will be required of each
participant. Some members of the training team and the secretariat will
have some degree of proficiency in French and languages other than
English.

DATES
The training workshop will be from 29th March 4th April 2003.
Participants should be at the workshop location by the evening of 28th
March and should be ready to depart on 5th April 2003.

COSTS
APC-Africa-Women has funding to cover the costs of a limited number
of participants. Costs include, air flights, visa and airport taxes,
accommodation for the duration of the workshop, all meals and
transport during the workshop and a modest per diem.

APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION
Deadline for submission of application is March 14th 2003. A completed
application form must be emailed to [email][email protected] March
14th 2003. Applicants will be informed of the selection panels' decision
as soon as possible.

*PLEASE NOTE THAT APC-AFRICA-WOMEN RESERVES THE
RIGHT TO ALTER THE PROGRAMME BASED ON DEMAND, SKILLS
AND TRAINING NEEDS OF ACCEPTED PARTICIPANTS. A MORE
COMPREHENSIVE COURSE OUTLINE WILL BE AVAILABLE AT THE
WORKSHOP*

====================================
APPLICATION QUESTIONNAIRE: WENT AFRICA 2003

This is the Application Questionnaire. Applicants are advised to
preferably cut and paste this questionnaire to a new email message
rather than send it as an attachment. Submit to [email][email protected]
by March 14th 2003.

A. PERSONAL DATA
1.First Name:
2.Family Name (Last Name, Surname):
3.Employer/Organization:
4.Position/Title:
5.Business Address:
6.Business Telephone:
7.Fax:
8.Email address:
9. Organisations web site address:
10.Your date of birth (day/month/year):

11.Nationality:

12.Name as it appears on passport or other travel document:

13.Passport number:

14.Country issuing passport:

15.Knowledge of English:

[ ] Poor
[ ] Fair
[ ] Fluent

B. INSTRUCTIONAL TRACKS

Please select either Track 1 or Track 2.
(Select only one track; the tracks will run in parallel):

[ ] Track 1: Computer housekeeping and email list facilitation
[ ] Track 2: Action Applications

C. QUESTIONS FOR ALL APPLICANTS:

1. Do you have experience in using the following Internet services?
(Please qualify your experience using 0 to 5, 0 means no experience
and
5 a lot of expertise)
[ ] Email
[ ] Mailing List
[ ] World Wide Web
[ ] Search engines
[ ] Other (specify):

2. Describe how you use the Internet in your work, for education,
entertainment, communication and for other purposes.

3. What type of information and communication services does your
organization run and what role do you play in these services?

FOR APPLICANTS TO TRACK 1 (Basic computer housekeeping and
mailing lists)

Do you have experience participating and/or maintaining mailing lists?

[ ] subscribing to a mailing list
[ ] participating in an online discussion group
[ ] facilitating an online discussion group
[ ] running/maintaining a mailing list
[ ] others, please specify

2. Does your organization run electronic mailing lists or discussion
lists?

If yes, what's the name of the mailing/discussion lists and describe its
objectives and user/membership base?

3. What is your role in running your organisation's mailing/discussion
lists

[ ] providing information for posting
[ ] leading/facilitating the discussion lists
[ ] managing the membership of the lists
[ ] others, please specify

FOR APPLICANTS TO TRACK 2 (Action Applications)
1. Does your organization have a Website? If yes, what is its URL?

2. What role do you play in running your organisation's Website if any?

[ ] Write HTML
[ ] Write materials for the Website
[ ] Edit materials for the Website
[ ] Create Graphics for Website
[ ] Helping Website Users
[ ] Answering Users' Queries
[ ] Others, please specify

D. DESCRIPTION OF ROLE IN ORGANIZATION or NETWORK'S
INFORMATION ACTIVITIES (YOUR ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS
BELOW WILL BE USED TO DETERMINE WHETHER TO ADMIT YOU
TO THE WORKSHOP. Please be sure that your information is
sufficiently clear, well organized and adequate for this purpose.

1. A summary of your relevant educational and professional
background.

2. A description of your current employer/organization, your position,
your duties and responsibilities.

3. A brief description of your computing and networking environment
(operating systems, networking software, modems, etc.), including the
connectivity of your organization to the Internet.

3a. Scope of your institution (check all categories that apply):
[ ] Local Community
[ ] National
[ ] Regional
[ ] Sub-regional
[ ] Global
[ ] Others, please specify

4. Does your organization use Information and Communication
Technology? How?

5. In what way is the Internet useful for you and your organization? In 2-
3 paragraphs, please describe your organization's plans vis-a-vis the
use of Information and Communication Technology (Internet services,
email, World Wide Web) in its information, networking and advocacy
activities.

6. What role do you play in your organization information and
communication strategy?

7. How you expect to use the knowledge you gain at the workshop.
Please answer in 3-4 paragraphs.

8. Have you previously attended Internet-related training?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

If yes,
9a. Year and type of training:

9b. Did you find it useful? In what way?

F. HOW TO APPLY

APPLICATION TO BE DONE VIA EMAIL

Applications should be submitted electronically and sent to:
[email][email protected] by March 14th 2003.

*PLEASE NOTE THAT APC-AFRICA-WOMEN RESERVES THE
RIGHT TO ALTER THE PROGRAMME BASED ON DEMAND, SKILLS
AND TRAINING NEEDS OF ACCEPTED PARTICIPANTS. A MORE
COMPREHENSIVE COURSE OUTLINE WILL BE AVAILABLE AT THE
WORKSHOP*

END OF ANNOUNCEMENT