Web 2.0: A Transformative and Healing Global Movement

After working in the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in the New York City, for the past 10 years, I am disappointed to report that the digital divide right here in America still exists. As an organizer I find myself having to go back to grassroots organizing, door knocking, posting flyers, and phone banking to reach both the mass population and the invisible immigrant population that exists here in the community. And this effort is just enough to get around a one neighborhood to organize people around a specific issue or to get information out about resources to the community; this is not attempting to tie a global perspective to a local issue. Web 2.0 is exciting because it gives me hope that although it’s taking time, the digital gap is slowly closing giving rise to silenced movements all over the world.
There is a saying that says “that when women get together even if in silence change happens”, and every time women connect through the power of media and the internet change also happens, energy runs through cyber world and women begin the process of healing themselves and each other. There is a power in story telling beyond building a movement. More importantly, storytelling is a form of health care for women. Every time a sister tells her story to whomever is listening, she releases a trauma, a sense of invisibility, hopelessness, and powerlessness that lives within stories untold and she gains validity, visibility and becomes an expert of her life.
Web 2.0 will bring together not only a global women’s empowerment movement, but a transformative and healing global movement of women releasing shame, guilt , fear and reclaiming their voice, mind, body and spirit and as a consequence their right to live a life free from violence.
For centuries women have been rising, standing up to and bringing visibility to issues in their lives, families, communities and countries. The challenge becomes that people start saying, “Oh, that’s just happening over there, that doesn’t apply here or to me”. With Web 2.0 women will never stand alone, we will not be individual targets that can be silenced or shut down. Instead we become a moving force across borders, our stories gain power. My story is no longer just mine, it becomes yours and ours. History is no longer in the past; our her-story becomes a shared and collective lived experience with multiple faces across the world. With Web 2.0 I am empowered to write down my lessons, to share my experiences with you so that they become tools of resistance and we become resources for one another. I am also excited to see how I can bring web 2.0 to young women globally so they don’t internalize the oppression and violence they face every day and start their healing and collective transformational journeys as early as possible.