𝙒𝙝𝙮 𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙙𝙞𝙜𝙞𝙩𝙖𝙡 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘 𝙨𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨?

Digital platforms have become important spaces for organizing, advocacy, and civic participation. For young people, women, and marginalized communities, they provide opportunities to raise concerns, connect with others, and participate in public discussions and collective action. But digital spaces are also increasingly being used to silence dissent.

In the Philippines, community organizers, young women leaders, and advocates from workers’, farmers’, urban poor, and other marginalized sectors face tech-facilitated violence and repression —including online harassment, surveillance, misinformation and disinformation, coordinated trolling, and red-tagging. These attacks do not only happen online; they create fear, encourage self-censorship, disrupt organizing, and limit people’s ability to safely participate in civic and democratic processes. Women, youth, and marginalized sectors already face structural barriers to participation. When their voices are attacked, discredited, or silenced online, these barriers become even greater.

In October 2026, through the “Connected for Change: Youth Leadership and Intergenerational Solidarity Against Tech-Facilitated Violence and Repression”, the Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), Girls for Peace, and Salinlahi Youth seek to strengthen young women leaders’ capacity to understand, analyze, and respond to these challenges through safer and more strategic digital civic engagement. It will also create a space for intergenerational dialogue and collaboration with experienced organizers from workers’, farmers’, and urban poor communities. Together, we aim to strengthen solidarity, develop collective advocacy initiatives, and build sustained action against digital repression and shrinking civic space. This project is supported by the Tifa Foundation and Civicus Alliance thru the Digital Democracy Initiative.

Digital spaces should be spaces for participation, organizing, and collective action, not fear and intimidation. Together, we can reclaim our digital civic space and use it to create change.

The Center for Women’s Resources was selected as a grantee by Tifa Foundation and CIVICUS’ Digital Democracy Initiative under the Re-D Fund Cohort 2.

Under the project “Connected for Change: Youth Leadership and Intergenerational Solidarity Against Digital Repression” CWR with Girls for Peace and Salinlahi Youth will conduct a training on digital civic engagement and mass campaigning which aims to strengthen young women leaders’ capacity to effectively and strategically use digital civic spaces for information dissemination, public education, organizing, mass campaigning, and advocacy.

#DDI_EastSEA #ReclaimCivicSpace #DefendFilipinoWomen