Hello folks, I am Kiri and I was part of aikyam’s December 2024 Tech for Climate Action Residency. I work with We Friends of Toto as a designer and tech help (sometimes). We Friends of Toto is an intersectional feminist organization that uses art and storytelling based interventions to talk about gender-based violence and social justice.
Learning tech tools can be daunting for most people but can it also be fun? aikyam’s residency definitely was. Pragya (founder of We Friends of Toto and a very beautiful person inside and out) and I landed in Kochi for the first time all ready to get our website up and running. As a Gen-Z organisation, all our work till now has been done using Instagram. Social media can be a powerful tool but ultimately, it is not in our control and it is not independent, which is crucial for an NGO that works with sensitive information.
Experiencing aikyam space
After travelling in a metro in a brand new city, we landed at aikyam space, which is super lovely. We had mixed dorm style rooms with three common areas for dinner, reading, playing board games, watching TV and of course, learning. You might think this is not essential, but learning is better with peers and the space is designed to encourage community building, which it succeeded in.
PS: I absolutely need to give a shout out to Jasentha chechi, who cooked amazing meals for us.
Our sessions took place upstairs where we would be most of the day but a lot of work was done during late nights in the community areas. We built connections that enabled us to see new perspectives as well as cultures since we were all from different parts of India and were working in different sectors. Pragya hosted a session about creating accessible spaces where we met others working in similar spaces.
The Curriculum
aikyam’s residency was five days, with different modules for each day. We were allowed to choose modules that would be the most helpful for us. These modules were a mix of soft skills, techniques, frameworks and tech tools. Some of the tools we learnt were Ghost, KoboToolBox, Frappe and BookStack. Each day had a different focus.
I did not even realise that we had managed to do so much within such a short time period with ease. We wrote blog posts and a newsletter, learnt about privacy, data management, set up the website (yes, we built this!) and experimented with the design as well.
The residency encourages you to look at the ‘why’ rather than focusing on the ‘how?’. I thought that we would just be learning tools but we learnt storytelling and also the ‘why?’ behind the tools that we would be using. We were introduced to FOSS tools curated by OASIS and alternatives which would hand us more power than proprietary tools from big corporates.
Working on the newsletter and creating a sample website
You might feel overwhelmed thinking that all of this is a lot, but it was divided into easy-to-do activities and made accessible regardless of your experience with technology (Except maybe, Frappe).
We also had our awesome facilitators and batch-mates who made learning fun and lively! A huge thank you to the aikyam team for being super helpful and inclusive + knowledgable. I would love to list out each person but seriously- all of them were amazing and kind.
The goal of the residency is not to make just a website but rather, equip you with the skills to find what works the best for you and be comfortable with technology. You want the tech to work for you and not the other way round. It is about making connections and learning from your peers as well.
Thank you for reading this. If you want to support us, please donate to this fundraiser:
Friends of Toto and PHASE
Click on the link below if you want to subscribe to our newsletter, and also check out the tangible version of our project, which has been made possible with a lot of love and support from the aikyam team. They have made tech accessible for us and I hope it will be the same for you. I hope that you get to learn as much as I did!
friends of toto
