How can we help more communities in the Global South get on the fediverse?
So they can build solidarity and mutual aid links with each other. As well as with communities in the Global North who often have access to significantly more political-economic resources.
(1/?)
A friend of a friend started an organisation called Just Peoples. A progressive charity, which collects money from well-meaning middle class folks in the Global North, and tries to to funnel it directly to community-led development projects in the Global South;
https://www.justpeoples.org/leaders
Their own operating costs are crowdfunded separately, allowing donors to choose whether or not any of their money funds Just Peoples itself. I really respect this model!
(2/?)
The main cost for Just Peoples is flying out to visit communities whose leaders approach them for funding. To confirm that;
* they're not just internet scammers pretending to be in the Global South
* they're not local scammers, who live where they claim, but don't actually intend to use funds they receive for community projects
* their projects are truly community-led, not driven by govts, political parties, for-profit businesses, religious cults, or any other top-down entity
(3/?)
I can absolutely get why Just Peoples work this way.
By meeting community leaders whose projects they fund in person, they can prove to prospective donors that they've done their due diligence. Plus by taking copious photos and video of the projects in process, audio interviews with community members, etc, they can also provide a richer source of inspiration to donate than they could offer with just text and a photo or 2, sourced from the project itself.
(4/?)
*But* ... flying middle class people around the world to check up on people doing the work on the ground is far from ideal. This can't help but create asymmetrical relationships, a problem I suspect the Just Peoples team are just as keen to solve as anyone else.
(5/?)
What might be better is a way for people doing community-led projects to form webs of trust and audit each other. Both within the Global South, and with solidarity groups in the Global North who are travelling to the South anyway, eg to offer practical support; deliver equipment, give training, etc.
That way, for every group a solidarity funding effort like Just Peoples has time to audit and trust, it opens up whole new networks of groups and projects they can treat as P2P audited.
(6/?)
So looping back round to my jumping off point, is there a way we can deploy fediverse tech to support the formation of these webs of trust, and P2P auditing?
(7/7)
Strypey
~Tijl