Digital Democracy

Deep Accompaniment - direct work with local partners - Digital Democracy works with Indigenous and other frontline communities in the Amazon region (including Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil), Kenya, Southeast Asia and North America to support their efforts to gather, manage, and share information about environmental and human rights challenges happening in their communities. We support the capacity building and technical training of local communities and build open source tools to better meet their needs. We focus on territory mapping and environmental monitoring programs to support local efforts to document and halt deforestation. In 2023 we worked with 14 partners in 7 countries.Tool Building & Product Support - Digital Democracy uses and supports the development of open source mapping and monitoring tools. In 2023 we continued to develop Mapeo, a free tool for groups to use for mapping and environmental monitoring, as well as Terrastories, a free tool for combining maps with stories and oral history. In addition, we provide product support for both tools.Local to Global Engagement - In 2023, Digital Democracy continued to host the Earth Defenders Toolkit, an online platform for earth defenders around the world to learn from each other about how to use technology to defend their local environment. In addition, we held the first in-person gathering for members of the Earth Defenders Toolkit network, bringing 40 environmental defenders together in Ecuador to share learnings and strengthen the network. Additionally, through events, speaking engagements, and presentations, Digital Democracy helped audiences understand the global human rights issues present in our work and the opportunities for local communities to use technology to more effectively advocate for their rights.