Lily Jordahl
ARMMAN India
Mumbai, India
Before beginning my work with ARMMAN I thought a large amount about women’s health as a human right as well as the history and distribution of this right within India. Thus, upon arriving I was prepared to spend most of my time at the organization considering these topics, and while this has been the majority of my experience I have also been thinking a fair amount about technology. Technology has never been a field which has particularly fascinated me, but the more learn about ARMMAN’s projects, which each relate to technology in some way, the more I have been captivated by the potential which technological innovation holds in the world.
Now, I know that the term technology is extremely broad, but I suppose I have predominantly been thinking about it through the lens of tools which allow for communication and information sharing, such as the Internet, computers, or cell phones. Initially I was interested in the way in which this type of technology was utilized in ARMMAN’s programs because I thought their projects provided an innovative and resourceful way to utilize a prevalent resource (such as a cell phone) to have a positive health impact. Yet, as I have spent more time thinking about the different aspects of these programs, the ideas within them have made me consider the valuable nature of the technology in itself, in addition to the positive health results it can create.
In the case of something like a cell phone, a piece of technology that is critical in ARMMAN’s mMitra program, this tool holds the potential for communication, research, or even education. ARMMAN utilizes cell phones in order to pass along information to pregnant women on health and wellness so as to provide education to these women and allow them to become more informed about the status of their health. Yet, a cell phone can be critical in many scenarios, such as in emergency situations where it is necessary to have tools to communicate and relay important messages to a responder. Thus, it is clear that there are definitive benefits to technology, as well as potentially detrimental effects if technology is not available.
While there are important reasons to have access to technology, I have been thinking about whether this kind of technology is a human right. So, with this question I turned to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to see whether there was anything written within it that could relate to this type of idea. The most relevant statement which I could find within the document is Article 27 which explains that “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” Technological innovation is linked heavily to scientific development, thus this article could approve the right to technology. In addition, I could also see how the right to education (Article 26) could be linked to these ideas as well as technological tools could be critical in allowing an individual to educate themselves or to supplement their education in ways that they are free to choose. But, even after considering these concepts and ideas I am still unsure of how I would place technological access in the context of human rights. However, I do think it may be important to consider these ideas further as the world becomes more defined by this type of innovation and the connections formed as a result of it.
On a completely different note, this has been a busy week here in Mumbai with one of the largest rainstorms so far in this year’s monsoon season! We had what I am terming a “rain-day” on Wednesday because flooding and train delays were so bad throughout the city that I was told to stay home from work. Here’s a picture of the flooding in the courtyard outside of my office building that I took earlier in the week.
