It has been a little over two months as I write this, but even just the thought of the food made by Jasentha chechi at aikyam space still makes my mouth water.
Last December, I got to be part of tech residency at aikyam fellows, with the intent to build our internal tech capacity and website for We Friends Of Toto (FOT Foundation). We're an intersectional feminist organisation that uses art and storytelling-based interventions to talk about gender-based violence and social justice.
Some unforgettable moments from the residency
One of the most productive and sweetest weeks of 2024, to be honest. I was accompanied by Kiri, a designer and illustrator who also volunteers with We Friends of Toto and is helping design the website. As cliche as it sounds, I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity and support–moral, residential and financial (with the travel).
I would also like to mention a bit about our pre-residency homework. When I first read on aikyam’s website that building a website is more of a content task rather than a tech task, I didn’t really understand what they meant. But when I sat with my team–to condense 2.5 years of work–we had to go back to the drawing board with our theory of change and vision and mission statements, figure out what and how do we want to present it. Realising and seeing all of our progress so far was such a beautiful, and hectic, task.
Coming back to the residency. It was a 5-day thing, where our sessions included everything,
- From content strategy and blog post writing homework,
- to rant sessions on gatekeeping within the development sector,
- very critical conversations on privacy and data (which, for us, is very essential as a nonprofit working with vulnerable groups),
- making us learn no-code tools,
- venting sessions about lack of funds,
- to importance of building knowledge management systems,
- and making us BUILD our websites!
Speaking from a feminist lens, I am a big fan of how aikyam uses and encourages the use of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) tools. My absolute favourite conversation with Shemeer was on power, access, and representation within technology.
Because that one session changed our outlook and systems in practice. Proprietary software often concentrates power in the hands of corporations, who dictate how technology is used and who has access to it. FOSS, with its emphasis on freedom, transparency and community control, can help redistribute this power, enabling marginalised and vulnerable groups to shape the technologies we use.
Megha
Sign up for our online workshop here
As an organisation, bodily autonomy and privacy of our team and beneficiaries/ participants is very important. FOSS tools provide greater control over personal data, preventing surveillance and exploitation. The open nature of FOSS enables security audits, making it much more secure as a software. Our website has been built entirely on Ghost, a FOSS no-code tool. aikyam fellows has fully supported us with their servers for hosting.
The third day of the residency, Sumi asked me if I could host a space on “How to make public spaces queer inclusive,” and I said 'Yes!' in 0.1 seconds. On my last day of the residency, I hosted an intimate gathering of 15 folks from Kochi (queer and allies) in an arts-based session. We discussed everything from who is queer, what is queer, what is public, what is private, what is a workspace, and what is inclusion?
What are we up to now?
We are ready with V1 of the website! Honestly, it’s a never-ending process (small cry) but we have done our best!
friends of toto
Megha from Team aikyam has been so kind and supportive and responsive with all our aspirations and requests with design. Jinso, being the tech wizard he is (never making us feel ‘less’ for asking the silliest questions), and Sumi (being the sweetest mentor and support system) have helped us conquer this HUUUUGE (scary) task. Excited to see what’s next!
