Women from rural communities in northern Brazil have long used their own technologies to support their well-being, such as those for food production, clothing creation and other everyday needs. Recently, they embarked on a journey to explore digital technologies, reflecting on both the possibilities and risks they carry.
This journey is part of the Roots of Connectivity project, which aims to strengthen communities while building connections between human rights and digital inclusion movements across the country. Coordinated by Intervozes with support from the Local Networks initiative, the project uses training sessions, knowledge exchanges, in-person workshops and the deployment of a mesh network to enable rural women to build and manage community internet networks.
Alongside these communities, the project explores how traditional practices can converge with external digital technologies in ways that are meaningful to their realities. Below, we have published an exchange of letters between two women from these communities. In them, they share the reality of their lives and describe, in their own words, the value of their new digital knowledge.
Dear Comrade Naiara,
I hope this letter finds you well and strong. Here in my community, Serra do Cabral, in the municipality of Mogeiro, Paraíba, we are well and in good spirits. Despite the flooding that affected our municipality in May, we are moving forward. I think you remember: it happened when I travelled to the second meeting of the Raízes em Conectividade [Roots of Connectivity] project, in the community of Bela Vista, Alagoas.
At the moment, we are not getting much rain here; the winter rains have eased off. On Saturday, we are going to do our semeio abafado [a traditional method of planting under mulch]; we have already set aside fava, pinto, fogo-na-serra and black bean seeds. We have faith in God that we will have a good harvest, both to feed ourselves and to save seeds for next year’s planting, God willing.
And how are things over there in Sergipe?
Let me tell you, writing this letter to you has a very special meaning for me, besides the fact that I miss you, of course. It has to do with something we talked about a great deal through our participation in the Raízes em Conectividade project: the importance of valuing, reclaiming and practising our ancestral communication technologies. We know that many rural women workers across all the states of the Northeast used a variety of communication technologies to come together and organise the struggle. It was through letters, messages sent over the radio, meetings at open-air markets, the struggle to have public telephones installed in rural communities and other such efforts that we came to exist as a social movement and that you and I are part of the struggle today.
Indeed, for us to be part of the struggle today, it took an entire community of rural women workers who had little or no access to formal education, the internet or social media, but who nevertheless succeeded in mobilising the struggle for women’s rights.
During the Raízes da Conectividade knowledge exchange, it was interesting to see how this mobilisation has taken place, and continues to take place, in different parts of our country. We were able to hear about and experience this in the communities we visited in the state of São Paulo: the joy and organisational strength of the women of RAMA (Rede Agroecológica de Mulheres Agricultoras), as they shared the story of how they organised producer groups and consumer groups, and the role of the internet in achieving economic autonomy; the struggle, resistance and leadership of the Indigenous women of Kalipety village in their fight for political autonomy, which transformed a system of governance by chiefs into a collective form of governance led by women; and the Black culture and resistance of our comrades at Casa Tainã and the Rede Mocambos, who are forging paths towards technological autonomy through mucuas, local data-hosting services. We are all connected to our histories of struggle for communication rights and for access to free technologies to preserve and protect our ancestral knowledge. These experiences helped me discover more possibilities for the struggle for digital autonomy, alongside the defence of our territories. I can already imagine many initiatives that could be undertaken in my own territory, such as talking more with women about digital security.
Thank you, Naiara, for sharing so many inspiring and hopeful experiences with me. Who we share the struggle with makes all the difference.
I send you this letter with much affection and look forward to your reply so we can carry on our conversation.
See you in July, in Bela Vista, Alagoas, visse? Here in Paraíba we say visse, not viu (as you do over there in Sergipe), visse? I believe that, although the different expressions may sound strange to us, they mean the same thing, LOL.
Rural feminist hugs!
Aline Carneiro, rural worker and agroecologist from Serra do Cabral, municipality of Mogeiro, Brazil.
18 June 2026.
Dear Comrade Aline,
I received your letter with great joy and emotion, as this is the first time I have received and written a letter. I remember you telling me about the flooding, and I am happy to know that, despite the challenges you have faced, you are standing strong, cultivating the land and preserving traditional seeds. I was also happy to hear about the semeio abafado, a technology typical of your region!
May the planting and harvest be plentiful, providing food and seeds to strengthen the life and resilience of the community.
Here, we are celebrating São João with plenty of corn, peanuts and bonfires. The houses are decorated with colourful bunting and balloons. Here in the southern Sergipe territory, we are getting a lot of rain, unlike the alto sertão, where crops are being lost because of the drought.
The rural women workers of Sergipe remain organised, facing many challenges but always strengthened by our unity and the certainty that our collective journey transforms lives. I have been trying to share what we have learned through the Raízes em Conectividade project, particularly the importance of grassroots communication, digital sovereignty and free technologies in strengthening our territories.
Your letter brought back memories of the exchange. It was not just a journey, it was an encounter with different forms of resistance and collective building. I will never forget the strength of the women of RAMA, the wisdom of the Indigenous women of Kalipety village, the power of Casa Tainã and the warm welcome we received from the Bela Vista community. Each territory taught us that communication is also about caring for our collective memory, defending rights and keeping our ancestral heritage alive. It was wonderful to share our whole journey with these communities, including the “Do Quintal à Cozinha” [From the Backyard to the Kitchen] app, a tool we are developing here in Sergipe. I was excited to learn that we can store our app’s data securely and locally, as we learned from the experience of the mucuas, the Rede Mocambos local data-storage infrastructure.
In the discussions we had during the online Raízes da Conectividade conversation circles, we were also able to learn a great deal about generative artificial intelligence models and about the patterns created by the context of disinformation that directly affects our territories. This information is very important when thinking about security, but above all about digital care, something that was brought strongly to our attention during the in-person meeting with the Rede Transfeminista in Bela Vista.
You are right when you say that our struggle was built long before the internet. Letters, messages carried from one community to another, radio programmes, open-air markets, meetings, our songs, our chita print blouses and skirts, and so many other forms of communication were fundamental in enabling us to occupy these spaces today and continue writing this history. We are the product of the courage of many women who paved the way for us.
I was also very happy to share this experience with you. Your joy made this journey even lighter. It is wonderful to realise that, even though we live in different states and regions, we remain connected by the same dreams, by the defence of our territories, by the strengthening of women and by the wish to build a fairer future. And do you remember the fanzine we made at our last meeting? I think it helped us express and understand technologies, like the way roots communicate. And intuitively, even before this whole process began, Vera had already suggested calling this journey Raízes da Conectividade.
I am already looking forward to seeing you again in July, in Bela Vista. I am sure we will have new stories to share, new things to learn and plenty of hugs. And don’t worry, I'll learn how to say visse!
Sending you a hug filled with gratitude and hope. May we continue sowing seeds in the soil, in communication and in our collective struggle.
With affection and a warm rural feminist hug,
Naiara
Vitória da União Settlement, Santa Luzia do Itanhy, Sergipe.
25 June 2026
Gathering from 27 February to 1 March in Bela Vista
Rafaela Leão is a Black woman from Northeast Brazil, born and raised in Igreja Nova, Alagoas, with a degree in nursing. She has worked in education for seven years and is currently the coordinator of the grassroots group Mulheres Rurais em Ação (Rural Women in Action), of the Mulheres Trabalhadoras Rurais e Pescadoras de Alagoas (Rural Working and Fishing Women of Alagoas) - MMTRP-AL (that stands for the Municipal Movement of Rural Women and Fisherwomen of Alagoas).
Aline Carneiro is a Black woman, from a rural area, an agroecologist, and a technician in agriculture. She has been an activist in the Rural Women's Movement of Paraíba since 2010.
Naiara Santana de Jesus is the daughter of settlers from the agrarian reform, a social worker, and a member of the Rural Working Women's Movement of Sergipe. Between 2021 and 2023, she coordinated the Free Territories and Free Technologies projects, and since 2024, she has coordinated the project to develop the "From the Backyard to the Kitchen: Connecting Knowledge and Practices in Food Production" app and the technological autonomy project "Roots of Connectivity." Until 2025, she was a member of the Committee for the Defense of Telecommunications Service Users in Brazil (CDUST).
Tâmara Terso is a Black, Afro-Brazilian, Northeastern Brazilian, and cisgender woman. She is a journalist and holds a Master's degree in Communication and Contemporary Culture (POSCOM/UFBA). Currently, she is a doctoral candidate developing a research project on communication processes and technological appropriation in rural communities led by women. She is a researcher at the Center for Studies and Research in Discourse and Media Analysis (CEPAD/UFBA), the Study and Research Group on Racial Relations, Intersectionalities and Communication Technologies (GRIOT/UFRB), and the Center for Communication, Democracy and Citizenship (CCDC/UFBA). She works on social impact projects in the areas of communication and human rights, racial and gender equity, climate justice, and policies for traditional peoples and communities, in educational institutions and non-profit organizations. She was part of the development team for ID Jovem, a youth policy focused on access to cultural goods and mobility in Brazil (2015). She is a member of the Intervozes Collective, presenter of "Ondas da Resistência," and organizer of the book "Ecos de Búzios: contributions to the Brazilian debate on communication and ethnic-racial relations," published by Dandara.
This exchange is part of the narrative report of the Roots of Connectivity Project, led by Intervozes and supported by the Local Networks (LocNet) initiative through a cycle of microgrants made available via a closed call to the initiative's partners and community networks in Brazil, Indonesia, Kenya and South Africa.