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One of the projects of The Task Force of Formosa on WWW in the past two years was to set up the Taiwan Ecological & Cultural Education Info Network, which aimed at providing comprehensive information related to Taiwan on the internet and assisting the minorities to access the internet.
In comparison with other forms of media, internet as the most powerful media in this era provides the general public better access to assert themselves equally. Each person and group can have their voice on the internet and obtain information they need as long as they are equipped with the basic skill of computer manipulation. The characteristics of "borderlessness" and "equality in access" of internet balance and make up the prejudiced viewpoint shown in other forms of media. By the characteristics of internet, The Task Force of Formosa on WWW wish to assist women and women's movement activists making good use of the internet to propagate their ideal on-line and gain broader support.
Lately, both the government departments and the general public began to recognize the importance of women-related social services. By such recognition, lots of useful experiences and resources for women-related services are well-accumulated. However, the information maintained in the government and individual groups or organizations are not well-connected to each other such that individuals or researchers cannot obtain the services and information they provide efficiently. This would be a fatal defect in improving the quality of women-related services and research. Through the establishment of on-line women's resources database, we expect to overcome these difficulties.
Taiwan Women Web is part of the project of the Taiwan Ecological & Cultural Education Info Network. In order to promote this project, we've tried to convince many women's organizations to work with us on issues of importance to women. We've also collected as comprehensive datas and information as we can for the establishment of this website.
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Women have been long in the situation of less access to information and little chance to speak for themselves than men. This results in women's little awareness of their human rights that they do not know to fight for that. However, without strong financial and political support, women can hardly break through these difficulties to get out of their poor situation.
Internet is a useful medium for education. Hence, to build up an on-line database that covers information of both practical and academic for women provides women the best way to access information for self-development. The information contains health care, living, laws, family relationship, book reviews, featured issues, and feminist discourses as well as information of social services provided by government departments and non-governmental organizations.
The best way to empower the minorities requires that they have direct access to information and assert their rights, which is especially important to women. The Task Force of Formosa on WWW manages to achieve these goals in two ways:
Assist women's organizations to understand the functions of internet and to manipulate computer.
Ever since the establishment of Women & Community Web Team under the Task Force of Formosa on WWW in March 1995, we've continued to promote the use of internet among women's organizations to extend women's participation in political and social reforms and provide women more access to voice their rights. In September, 1995, while the China government prevented Taiwan's attendence at the NGO Forum on Women of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) in Beijing, the Women & Community Web Team invited local women's organizations to build Taiwan Women Forum network on the internet to speak for Taiwan women's rights. Later on, the Women & Community Web Team assisted the Taipei Association for The Promotion of Women's Rightsˇ]TAPWER) and Awakening Foundation to build their homepages, and began to propose the idea of building "Women's Information Systems Training Network" to local women's organizations to increase their knowledge and use of internet.
As part of the project of the Taiwan Ecological & Cultural Info Network, "Women's Information Systems Training Network" aims at making a space for women in the Chinese cyberspace by building a women-only and female-friendly Chinese website to accumulate more women related resources for efficient access. By this effort, we wish to encourage more women to utilize internet resources not only to speak for their human rights but also to expand their visions to things for self-development.
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ConclusionWomen's status as the minorities is a global issue. However, the borderless cyberspace connects women together at an international level, which would strengthen women's power in fighting for gender equity.
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Yam Women Web since 1997.03.08 last updated : 1998.11.13
All Rights Reserved by The Frontier Foundation Formosa on WWW Women & Community Web Team
