Today was a productive day for me. Every day passes by and I am introduced to many wonderful and inspiring people. I interviewed Zoe Fox who is a young and talented woman with remarkable experience of working in technology, especially social and digital media in developing countries.

Fereshteh Forough and Zoe Fox in the Film Annex Studio.

On the other side of doing interviews, every day I see the noticeable growth of users from Afghanistan on our platform and how Afghans, especially the young generation, understand the important value and the proper usage of these social tools to connect to each others and establish a reliable and transparent way of communication.

In the picture below you can see the number of participants from each country who are contributing to Film Annex, either by writing blogs, uploading their movies or both.

 

If we compare Afghanistan with its neighbors, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, we can see that Afghans are much more active than those countries, even though they have limited access to electricity and Internet.

The red rectangle is the average female participants and the blue is male. Comparing the numbers will show that Afghan female are more active and involved than their male competitors, as of being online and  using digital media.

This demography and numbers remind me one thing. You can keep women away from working outside and going out with their friends without the permission of the male members of their families in some areas, but this is the power of new technology which gives the ability to women to go out any time, anywhere, tell their ideas, meet new friends in the virtual world and nobody can prevent it.

I believe in what Rumi said: “Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”