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MEDIA LITERACY AND INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE<br />

Strategies, Debates and Good Practices<br />

<br />

As seen, ICT can contribute to improving the status of women in various<br />

sectors, such as fighting poverty with new employment opportunities and<br />

marketing of products, or through training and information, combating gender<br />

violence, through the transmission of knowledge. Our proposed intervention for<br />

the Empowerment of women's collective social associations in the municipality<br />

of Pamplona is based on a course in computer literacy and the recovery of<br />

historical<br />

memory.<br />

Such a proposal leads us to consider necessary to start up work on memory, a<br />

ransom of the life stories of each woman. Through awareness of the abuses,<br />

whether in private relationships, or in the social context that many women have<br />

suffered and continue to suffer, they are encouraged to tell their life stories thus<br />

conveying their testimony and prevent further perpetuation of abuse. By writing<br />

and reading ones own experiences from a gender perspective one can foster<br />

awareness, construct a new position in front of their realities and stimulate new<br />

attitudes to the difficulties.<br />

While we strongly believe in the importance of rescuing the positive experiences<br />

of women, so they do not create or convey exclusive models as victims, we also<br />

believe in the need for women to expose themselves to their realities as victims<br />

of cultures and men, victims especially of a patriarchal culture.<br />

3.1. Why is ICT used as a tool for empowerment?<br />

The empowerment of women in relation to Information Technology and<br />

Communication, involves improving the skills, knowledge, access and use of<br />

ICT. This definition includes a strategic objective referred to increasing the<br />

participation and access of women to expression and decision-making in and<br />

through the media and information technologies and communication.<br />

The relationship of both concepts- ICT-empowerment, as Aguado, Escofet and<br />

Rubio (2009) pointed out, is understood from two perspectives:<br />

a) ICT as a vehicle of social empowerment. The idea behind this approach is<br />

that ICTs can be a major catalyst for social and political empowerment of<br />

women and to promote gender equality. There is recognition of the potential of<br />

technology as a vehicle to achieve or improve gender equality. For example, the<br />

use of tools and competition promotes employability and self-employment or<br />

participation in virtual communities and networks can increase the capacity of<br />

free expression and decision-making at different stages of a woman’s life.<br />

b) Empowerment with ICT. This perspective refers to the level of access, use,<br />

competence and attitude towards ICT.<br />

In summary, the empowerment of women is focused on increasing its power in<br />

key decisions of one’s life, including those related to access to resources,<br />

participation in decision making and in the distribution of benefits. It is a process<br />

rather than a strategy, so there can be no development agencies to empower<br />

women, but it must be they who empower themselves. The concept<br />

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