Web 2.0 and Me

I have never heard of Web 2.0 before. Not until signing up for the 2011 VOF Application Classroom. I looked up Web 2.0 on Wikipedia this week and realized I had been using some of its tools all along both personally and at work.

I believe that Web 2.0, or rather the use of Web 2.0, has ensured that women are not just consumers of information created by the media or by others. It has ensured and guaranteed a space for us women to also be the producers of information and to add our voices and views to the global women’s empowerment movement.

The tools available with Web 2.0 and its potential outreach are unfathomable. It is the solution to the ‘voicelessness’ and ‘facelessness ‘ of women and the critical issues affecting their lives, their children, their families, their own personal and human development and their participation in society – be it social, political, religious or economic, or just as a human being with rights. With Web 2.0 technology, women have the opportunity to be a more visible, more vocal and more interactive citizen in her country, in her region, and in her world.

As I write this, I realize I have been a somewhat passive user of this online technology and perhaps even a little bit ignorant of the power Web 2.0 tools have to change or advance a life, a group of people, a country or a world. I see how World Pulse is using Web 2.0 and what has and is being achieved; the global connections it has made possible, the space’s, the rooms, the markets, it is creating for women to interact and to share knowledge and resources; most of all, the millions of women from all over the world, from different cultures, different religions, different political backgrounds - all journey here - overcoming vast land, oceans and skies - in this one place called World Pulse, to share their needs and to tell their stories, without suppression or oppression. Web 2.0 has made miracles for women who need a space to make their voices heard and I hope I will be a part of this miracle.