Tech Matters: Using tech for positive social change

I recently had the pleasure of visiting one of our longtime Martus partners in Thailand, The Network for Human Rights Documentation – Burma ( ND-Burma ). It was so gratifying to see firsthand how Martus , a free and open-source software tool developed by Benetech, is empowering people to be the change they wish to see. Martus enables human rights workers to securely document and organize information about violations in a way that protects those who would face violence and repression for telling their stories. Jim Fruchterman with ND-Burma members In the years since the 1988 suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations, the military junta in Burma has committed many thousands of human rights violations, including killings, torture, forced displacement, rape and political imprisonment. ND-Burma, a Thailand-based coalition of over ten human rights groups, has been collecting narrative testimonies from victims and witnesses of human rights abuses by the Burmese regime. We have exten...

Guest Beneblog by Vijaya Tripathi The first ever Martus users group meeting took place earlier this month in Chiang Mai, the capital of Northern Thailand. Martus is Benetech's free and open source software package designed for human rights activists to collect stories and data about human rights abuses. For me personally, the meeting was a rare experience. I have led Martus outreach and training for the past 4 years and worked with human rights defenders all over the world, but because of the project-specific nature of our work, I interact with each of our partners separately. This global Martus meeting brought together individuals who use Martus to address different human rights documentation and security needs in widely varied projects, to share their successes and challenges with the software. It was surreal and incredibly exciting to see these inspiring people, my colleagues and friends, assembled in one place to launch the next generation of Martus. Our mandate, broadly speaki...