Redeemed Village and Mathare 3B are two huge slums surrounding Nairobi. Poorly constructed mud, carton and rusting iron sheet shelters crowd together along twisted narrow lanes, which serve as open drains. Water and electricity are scarce. Residents are seriously affected by violent crime, illegal drugs and alcohol, HIV/AIDS and unemployment.

"Women's Voices", a project of the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), set out to talk to the women living in these neighbourhoods to ask them how they felt they could most effectively get involved in the public policy debate on poverty; an area where women's voices were seldom heard. They came up with an unexpected use of technology. Raising funds to purchase their own digital video equipment, including old and borrowed Betamax cameras, the women learnt scripting, shooting and editing and how to present their communities by showing rough-cuts and recording opinions and asking for contributions to the story and the narratives.

The videoing of the Mathare and Redeemed Village experiences led to direct and sustained contact with political representatives and those in control of civic services. A major impact has been the increase in participation in the political process, and the women have also secured a contract with a local TV network to regularly supply short news briefs from their villages. The overwhelming impact has been on the individual women in the women's groups, as their self- esteem and respect from their families and communities has grown. The videos have been transferred to CDs and they have been shown around the world and appear on ITDG's Sustainable Livelihood web site.

"Women's Voices represents exactly the type of grassroots communication initiative that Betinho would have supported," said Carlos Afonso, a Brazilian mentor of civil society social movements and long-time friend of Betinho. "Betinho was a master at bringing NGOs' work to the mainstream media and believed it was a strategic and even "natural" alliance. Today several years after his death, Betinho's Campaign Against Hunger is stronger than ever and even runs advertising on prime-time television".

The $7,500 USD Betinho Prize is designed to recognise and document outstanding examples of how the Internet can make a real difference for the world's communities today. The prize is open to NGOs, community-based groups, coalitions, working groups or social movements anywhere in the world that have successfully used information and communication technologies (ICTs) as an essential ingredient in their social justice and development work.

A visionary Brazilian social activist and exemplary communicator, Herbet de Souza, (known to all as "Betinho") spent his life fighting for street children, senior citizens, landless peasants and people living with AIDS. He founded the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), one of APC's founding member organizations, where he encouraged the use of new technologies to empower communities.

The prize was announced by APC at the Global Community Networks conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina on December 6th 2001 and is made possible with the financial support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada.