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Keynote Presentation
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"Cultivating online communities to
overcome poverty, injustice
and stigma in the Southeast Asia"
By Nada Chaiyajit, Research Development Officer, Thailand
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Bio:
Nada Chaiyajit is a Research Development Officer with Bridges
Across Borders Southeast Asia Community Legal
Education Initiative (BABSEA CLE), a not-for-profit grass
roots human rights organisation. She is also the Project
Manager of an international collaboration between Mplus
Thailand, the Open University (UK) and the McCormick
Faculty of Nursing, Payap University entitled, ‘Expanding HIV
Prevention and Outreach Coverage @Mplus’. This
project, funded by amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research) is
putting into action locally-adapted,
community-based Popular Opinion Leader and Online Peer
Outreach Prevention programs to promote sexual
health, legal/human rights and access to quality HIV/AIDS
prevention using internet communication technologies
(ICTs). Nada is also a founding member of the ‘Thai
Transgender Alliance’, a fellowship network that promotes
understanding and equality for transgender people in Thai
society. The Thai Transgender Alliance is using the
Internet to compile a database of human and sexual rights
violations against transgender people to prove to the
authorities that this gender-based violence (GBV) is violation
of their human rights and a major public health issue.
Nada has lobbied individually and collectively to modernize
the Thai criminal law on rape, advocating for a specific
equality provision for both men and women. Drawing on funded
research and her experiences as advocate for human
rights, Nada has worked collaboratively with marginalised and
stigmatised populations in initiatives to promote
democracy, social justice and equity by strengthening their
capabilities and promoting their involvement in online
communities of practice.
Abstract:
There are five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve
the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Failure to
meet these goals is unacceptable when so many people across
the globe suffer injustice, and where true democracy is
still unattainable. This presentation reports on innovative
community-based work in South East Asia that involves citizens
as stakeholders in initiatives to promote democracy, social
justice and equity. Through facilitating people-to-people
and educational exchanges, cross-cultural dialogue and
volunteer programs, I will describe our efforts to use
new technologies in community development and
capacity-building, child protection and education,
transitional justice
and community legal education initiatives. First the
presentation will outline how the provision of online
platforms
supports local struggles for social justice, stigma reduction
and the protection of human rights. Drawing on case studies
from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia, it will outline ways of
bridging the digital divide in attempts to halt the spread
of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, eliminate gender disparity in
education, and provide rights- based community
education across a variety of contexts including juvenile
detention centres, women’s prisons, and through online
social networking websites.
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