[NCUC-DISCUSS] Fwd: Capacity building assistance offer to digital rights advocates

[Brenden Kuerbis]

Potentially of interest to some of our LAC region organizational members.
Could be helpful in building exposure to specific policy issues that
straddle ICANN/IGF.

-- Brenden

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Becky Lentz <roberta.lentz at mcgill.ca>
Date: Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 10:22 AM
Subject: Capacity building assistance offer to digital rights advocates
To: "GIGANET-MEMBERS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU" <GIGANET-MEMBERS at listserv.syr.edu>






 (Please forward/post as appropriate, and excuse any unavoidable
cross-postings)

       Dear colleagues,

 Greetings from Montreal. As part of an ongoing experiment in researching
and cultivating collaborative (vs. extractive) models for university-civil
society partnerships in IG, I’m writing to invite expressions of interest
from potential civil society partners (for Fall 2015, in the Americas only,
preferably not in Canada or the US) seeking research that supports their
Internet-related policy advocacy work. Of particular interest are proposals
from groups involved in the IGF (or considering becoming involved in it).
Other proposals for research assistance are also invited, but discussions
would be needed to ensure the appropriate history/context can be
accommodated in the research timeframe allotted.

 As background, previous civil society partners have included Derechos
Digitales (DD) in Santiago and the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) in
Kampala. Outcomes for two semester-long projects with DD include the
following research brief, which was developed by students and then
edited/translated/formatted by DD:
https://www.derechosdigitales.org/wp-content/uploads/PP05.pdf; we are now
completing a second project featuring a review of the literature
(scholarly, news, government, and civil society sources) about the benefits
of the IGF for civil society organizations, a report that anticipates the
2015 IGF in Latin America. Testimonials and references from DD
are available about how they benefited from both of these collaborations.

 The third semester-long project resulted in establishing 3
university-supported internships to help WOUGNET with a variety of capacity
building needs: an Information/ Communications Intern (
http://wougnet.org/2014/02/internship-opportunity-informationcommunications-deadline-28th-february/),
a Technical Support Intern (
https://www.mcgill.ca/arts-internships/files/arts-internships/wougnet_tech_support_intern.pdf),
and Gender and ICT Policy Advocacy (
https://www.mcgill.ca/arts-internships/files/arts-internships/wougnet_gender_and_ict_policy_advocacy_0.pdf).
Testimonials and references from WOUGNET are also available.

 The process for identifying a civil society partner for the Fall semester
2015 is now underway; it consists of the following steps: 1) an expression
of interest by a potential civil society partner; 2) based on a possible
match, an invitation for a short proposal (template will be provided); and
3) if selected, a jointly-crafted memorandum of understanding (MOU) between
the selected civil society partner and my class. There are no costs to the
partner organization other than a modest commitment of time during the
semester-long project.

 If you have advocacy-related research needs and you think a
September-December timeframe for working together with a report available
to you in late December 2015 meets your needs, please feel free to contact
me off-list.

 Best,
Becky Lentz
 McGill University
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