JAAKLAC

Jaaklac is a non-formal organization run in collaboration with young people, educators and civil society organizations mostly in Latin America.

Jaaklac aims to broaden the participation in the governance of the digital ecosystem, promotes Latin American projects in critical digital education and innovates solutions guided by human rights. Their focus is younger generations and generally excluded groups and their goal is creating a fairer digital future for all.

Jaaklac aims at bridging ‘divisions of learning’ that Shoshana Zuboff signaled as defining our information society and magnifying social inequalities. Global strategies to bridge digital divides have been overly focused on providing access, with insufficient educational policies to reflect on the implications of the digital ecosystem in societies and the environment. Digital education has been mostly dedicated to teaching with technologies, relegating the understanding of these to the neutral representations of science and technology disciplines. Moreover, international digital agendas have consistently overlooked children’s rights and freedoms. Under eighteen years old are one in three people online globally. This is the first generation which lives and lifelong opportunities are completely ‘datafied’. Nonetheless, within digital governance discussions there is minimal engagement with children’s values, needs and voices.Latin America is the most unequal region in the world and the pandemic brought to the fore how digital divides are the cause and consequence of these. In recent years, the region has made great advances in terms of children’s rights. However, a remaining commonality across countries are the disadvantages that monumentally affect its younger generations. This context permeates as well into digital risks being amplified, for example, with weaker welfare systems and data protection regulations. Promoting spaces for digital education are crucial to mitigate the constraints the digital age can impose to children’s wellbeing and to collectively harness social justice.

The partnership resulted in raising awareness on digital risks for children and developing solutions to address a current gap in digital education in relation to these topics. For the GR RA LAC, we established collaborations between  digital rights organisations, schools and technologists to reflect upon the  topics encompassed in the GR Misinformation edition and to rethink it to be centred in Latin American youth. The project aimed at developing a GR edition based on Augmented Reality (AR) to design an engaging experience especially for audiences with no previous experience on issues of misinformation and privacy in relation to digital technologies.

GR RA LAC convened civil organisations and schools from Latin America focussed on children and young people (between 12 to 24 years old). This resulted in one high school and one civil society organisation partnering with young people. Three digital rights civil society organisations took part to share their past experiences implementing the GR in Latin America. The team was also constituted by a company specialised on Augmented Reality. The project was further co coordinated with Causas Digitales, a youth group from Latin America which is part of JAAKLAC’s projects. Current members are from Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela aged between 19 and 27 years old. To adapt the GR exhibit we developed an Atlas of Activities, which mainly consisted in three online workshops. Prior to this, a coordination meeting was conducted with Causas Digitales and organisations to adjust the Atlas, better coordinate the sessions and introduce participants to each other. Each online workshop was dedicated for participants to learn, share and do in order to progress in the development of a GR RA LAC plan. The sessions were dedicated to (1) lessons learnt from past GR exhibits in Latin America (co facilitated by TEDIC and Fundación Karisma); (2) exploring the possibilities of AR to enhance exhibits (co facilitated by Aumenta); and (3) elaborating a plan to design and implement the GR RA LAC in 2023. This process was complemented with participants invited to follow tasks asynchronously that nurtured ideas and built a roadmap to collectively materialise the exhibit. Activities further included the translation of GR Misinformation materials into Spanish language.

a) Organisations were engaged through workshops based on critical digital education practices. These take the shape of a horizontal dialogue entwining  different worldviews and backgrounds to make sense of the effects of digital technologies. b) To this end, GR RA LAC was based on collaboration and participation. Workshops and other activities were co-facilitated with different stakeholders and young people. c) Firstly, the process aimed at encouraging organisations to repurpose resources developed in Europe and to tailor these to the Latin American context. Secondly, to connect young people and organisations not specialised in digital rights to the GR.