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Rodrigo Nogueira is the Editor of Viva Favela, a Rio de Janeiro-based citizen journalism project of Viva Rio. Viva Favela's coverage of the aftermath following a helicopter which was shot down by drug dealers in Rio De Janeiro was featured on Global Voices earlier this month (and translated into German, French, Chinese, and Swahili). In this interview Rodrigo discusses the history, goals, and future of the organization.

Transcript:

My name is Rodrigo Nogueira. I'm the editor of Viva Favela. Viva Favela is a project of Viva Rio which started in 2001 with the idea to talk about the favela (slum) from a different perspective. A different perspective from the media. Talking about the people who live in the favelas and produced by people who live in the favelas too. We work on this in two ways. We have professional journalists helping community leaders that live in favelas to become amateur journalists and with the passing of time many of these community leaders became professionals and began working for news [agencies] when they left Viva Favela.

David: When people learn how to publish content online, what are some of the topics that they tend to cover? Rodrigo: We have every Monday a discussion, an editorial meeting, to talk about what subjects we are producing this week. Some subjects are very strong. For example the helicopter that was shot down by the drug dealers in Rio three weeks ago. So this was a hot topic that everyone wanted to talk about. So we have to do this our own way. How does this episode reflect the daily lives of the communities? When something of this magnitude goes to the mainstream media the state [police] go very hard at the communities. A lot of people could be shot by some police operation in the favela. And the people who live there talk about this. Especially we talk about daily life. Things that you don't see in the mainstream media. Our focus is this.

David: The content that they publish online … has that led to any changes in the community offline?

Rodrigo: Yes, because the people who produce for Viva Favela are very in touch with the issues of the community. The whole community starts to talk with them. They see it as a channel of expression for the community. For example, we did a story about a slum. They are very poor. And when this was published in Viva Favela some mainstream journalists saw the story and started to talk to the government of the state of Rio that said to the public that they are going to do something to change this slum.

David: Some of the content that they have produced has been featured on Global Voices before, right?

Rodrigo: For the first time. I think that this internet culture is very interesting because I was in a conference in Mexico and I started a conversation with the Latin America editor of Global Voices. So he introduced me to the people who are working here in Brazil. So this meeting started by email and now we're discussing this here at the Digital Culture Forum in Brazil … it's very good because something that started by email and now is [in person].

David: And what was that Global Voices story about?

Rodrigo: it was about the helicopter. The story of how the people are seeing the shooting down of the helicopter in their own community. People are very afraid because the police response is very strong in these poor communities.

David: If people had read that article on Global Voices, is that different coverage than they would see in the mainstream media?

Rodrigo: Yes, I think so. Because in this article on Global Voices I watched different perspectives from people who don't have any economical interest in talking about this. David: Now that you've already had some success training citizen journalists and getting them to produce content what are your future goals as an organization? Rodrigo: For us, our main goal is to create a collaborative platform. Because in Rio, for example, we have 1,000 favelas. And we don't have a lot of people working in the newsroom right now to cover 1,000 favelas. So our idea is to create a platform so that every person in a different favela can talk about their own reality. We want to create a network of favelas. Our expectation is to create a network of favelas that can [bring] together different people from different places so that they can discuss their own issues by their own perspectives. We want to create this platform We hope that in 2010 we already have this running and everyone can participate.

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Pavel Kutsev is the co-founder of Drop-In Center, a Ukrainian organization which advocates for the rights of the injection drug user communication and for better national policy related to substitution therapy. In this video he gives us a basic introduction to the “harm reduction from injection drug use” movement, and summarizes the outcomes of a recent conference in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine which sought to establish a national network of harm reduction activists.

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Historically, libraries have been characterized as spaces for the free access to knowledge in the fields of literature, art, and culture, as well as becoming gathering places for the community. In this spirit, two years ago the Public Pilot Library of Medellín, Colombia at the La Loma site welcomed the participants of Hiperbarrio [es], one of the initial Rising Voices projects, where citizen journalism workshops have been taking place.

Photo of La Loma Library by Convergentes and used with permission. Click on photo to see a larger version of photo.

It is noteworthy that this library was created more than 50 years ago, as an initiative of the residents of La Loma, and throughout its service to the community it has offered classes in literature, painting, and music. The importance of its social role was described by Rezwan at the Rising Voices blog, who notes that that librarian's responsibility goes beyond the simple lending of books.

It is with those reasons that there were united voices of indignation surrounding the events that took place on October 13, which is described by @blueandtanit:

Ladrones robaron el equipo administrativo con información de La Loma, caja menor y El nica de Hiperbarrio en un asalto a la bpp de La Loma.

The director of Hiperbarrio, Álvaro Ramírez described his reaction upon hearing the news. He writes about the consequences of the robbery in his blog Ojo al Texto [es]:

Estoy un poco aturdido. Me concentro y trato de visualizar la modesta y hermosa Biblioteca de La Loma, sus estantes, las mesas y las sillas donde niños y grandes se sientan a diario a leer, a consultar libros, y a conversar.

Alcanzo a imaginar los computadores apagados y en la noche. Un par de intrusos llegan y logran penetrar por el techo. Entran con linternas y comienzan a sacar cosas

(…)

A la mañana siguiente llegan Gabriel Jaime y los otros empleados y encuentran el desastre. Un robo consumado. Un asalto a la comunidad de La Loma y un golpe duro para la Biblioteca Pública Piloto que ha venido dotando, con gran voluntad y paciencia a la filial más antigua de su extendida red de bibliotecas públicas: es decir gratuitas y abiertas para que todos podamos acceder a sus servicios.

(…)

Pienso en el daño que eso representa. En las personas que se van a perjudicar por no poder acceder gratis a los computadores.

Photo of La Loma library by blueandtanit and used under a Creative Commons license. Click on photo to see a larger version of the photo.

News of the robbery soon spread throughout different online networks, and the community also received notes from those who expressed their solidarity during the incident, showing that there is a strong network across the internet. For example, from Chile, Enzo Abbagliati sent a message of support on his blog Cadaunadas [es] after reading the post written by Ramírez:

Cadaunadas varias veces ha sido espacio para la alegría que desde una barriada de Medellín hemos recibido cotidianamente quienes creemos en las bibliotecas públicas como espacio de equidad y construcción de sociedades más democráticas. Reproduzco ahora una triste nota publicada por Álvaro Ramírez en ConVerGentes, quien desde el aturdimiento inicial nos avisa que han robado en la Biblioteca de La Loma. En Chile, en nuestras bibliotecas públicas, a veces sufrimos la misma suerte, la misma frustrante suerte.

¡Animo, amigos de La Loma! Sé que la comunidad estará con ustedes.

Locally, the Colombian digital magazine Equinoxio [es] became one of the first sites to publish news about the acts of vandalism and wrote about the efforts to investigate the crime:

El director de la biblioteca se reunió con las autoridades y con efectivos de la Policía Nacional a fin de coordinar esfuerzos para recuperar los bienes que se llevaron los asaltantes y capturar a los responsables.

Fortunately, the Golden Nicca prize was recovered, as it was found nearby, but the other objects remain missing. A member of Hiperbarrio, Catalina Urquijo of the blog $ujetate (Unknown II) [es] thanked those who sent messages through the different social networking sites:

Ofrecemos nuestros más sinceros agradecimientos a todos aquellos que nos acompañaron por diversos sitios de la red dándonos su apoyo tanto cuando creímos que nos habían robado el nica como ahora.

Finally, Libary Coordinator Gabriel Vanegas of the blog Esas Voces que Nos Llegan [es] summarizes the shock in which, as a public employee, he had to find out about the incident:

Duele ver la ignorancia de quienes perpetúan este delito contra el patrimonio de la comunidad, pero preocupa pensar en quienes dieron la orden de hacerlo y quienes sabiendo y viendo que se hacia no procedieron de manera correcta y oportuna ante las autoridades.

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Eric Newton is the vice president of the journalism program at Knight Foundation. He describes the annual $5 million Knight News Challenge, which aims to bring about news innovation by supporting new technologies and techniques to bring news and information to specific geographic communities around the world. He offers some examples of projects that have been funded including Rhodes University in South Africa, Freedom Fone in Zimbabwe, Ushahidi in Kenya, and the Sochi Olympics citizen journalism project in Russia, and also provides some tips for applicants seeking funding.

The deadline for this year's News Challenge is October 15 so if you have a good idea, apply now.

Transcript:

Eric: My name is Eric Newton. I’m the Vice President of the journalism program at Knight Foundation. The Knight News Challenge is a kind of open, international, research and development contest for news innovation. And the idea behind it is that the digital revolution has turned information and news upside down and inside out, and things are changing so rapidly that no one - not traditional media companies, not even the entrepreneur community - can keep up with the pace of change. So our foundation thought that if we have an open, international contest and collected thousands of entries and picked the very best ideas for news innovation that it would help speed the process of moving good news and information into the digital age.

David: How does the Knight News Challenge relate to media development? Or does it?

Eric: Well, it relates to media development in that each of the entries needs to have four key elements. 1) It needs to involve news and information. The kind of news and information that people need to run their communities and their lives. 2) It needs to involve specific geographic communities. So it is not about technology platforms that aren’t related to a specific community - a place where people live and work and run their government. 3) It needs to involve digital innovation; something new. And because of the fourth element, it is very helpful for media development because the fourth element is that whatever technology is developed is then free and open source, and usable by anybody anywhere in the world for news and information in their communities.

David: Does innovation have the same meaning in all countries and all contexts?

Eric: No. Things that are new in one culture might be quite old in another. But we don’t think that it’s the job of the News Challenge to try to bring all of the new developments to everyone in the world. We think that the governments will do that and businesses will do that. There are already structures involving millions and even billions of dollars in media that will spread the innovations. What we’re looking for are things that no one has tried before. No one meaning no one. Those innovations can be technological, but they can also be innovations of technique. If someone in a culture outside the United States says, ‘hey, we can combine these technologies in a unique way in our community’, that is innovation.

So, when Rhodes University in South Africa says ‘we can develop a cell phone citizen journalism program in the township, we can create a web platform for the English-language newspaper, we can create a new web platform for the Afrikaans radio station, and then we can digitally connect all three of these things so that for the first time this community can have a unified news system’ - well, that wasn’t any new technology necessarily. That was taking things and putting them into action in specific communities because of the unique characteristics of that community.

David: Can you give a couple other examples of News Challenge winners internationally, from outside the US?

Eric: Sure, in Sochi, where the Olympics are coming, a citizen journalism project is in the process of organizing the community to talk about whether the olympics are a good thing or a bad thing for the town, or something in between. A major citizen journalism project in Russia is not the norm - so that should be an interesting experiment. In Zimbabwe, there is an experiment in mobile news distribution called Freedom Fone. In Kenya, Ushahidi is experimenting with data visualization and real-time mapping of citizen journalism contributions so that if major news events are occurring you can see the reports that are coming in from all quarters and get a visual idea of what is happening. Those are just some of the examples.

The News Challenge is open internationally because the idea is that anyone anywhere can come up with a good idea. We haven’t done as many international projects as we’d like to because a lot of people think that they have new ideas, but really they just don’t know that it is already happening somewhere else and the technology already exists, and in fact models already exist. So nothing new needs to be developed. What needs to happen in that case is that aid programs or the commercial sector or any number of other funders need to step in to spread things that we already know work.

David: We are about one week from the deadline of this year’s News Challenge. What recommendations and advice would you give to applicants?

Eric: Well, I think that the main thing to remember is that we’re looking for projects with all the elements: great news and information, great digital innovation, specific geographic community and free and open source sharing of what is learned and developed. We frequently will get project proposals that are very strong in one of the categories, but weak in the others. The best thing that anyone can do is partner with experts in the other areas and do their homework in the other areas if they themselves are only experts in only one of the areas.

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Amadou M. Ba is the co-founder and president of AllAfrica.com, the largest online aggregator and distributor of news from Sub-Saharan Africa in English and French. He is also the acting executive director of the African Media Initiative, which aims to strengthen Africa's media sector by bringing together owners and operators of major media outlets to collaborate on training programs, seek investment opportunities, advocate for better policy, and improve media research. Amadou tells us about the history of AllAfrica.com, the major challenges facing African leaders in the media sector, and how funders can most effectively support a vibrant media space in Africa.

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Tomorrow marks World Hospice and Palliative Care Day. It is too easy to simply roll one's eyes at the never-ending proliferation of special ‘days' that mark what seem to be a greater quantity of activist causes than we have days in the year. Worse, we can easily fall into the trap of believing that a single day of recognition will automatically lead to greater awareness, better policy, and social change. But when it comes to the movement for palliative care - that is, organizations dedicated to relieving suffering and improving the quality of life for people facing life-threatening illness - there don't seem to be many other options to spread awareness. With very few exceptions, mainstream media has shown no interest in reporting on the rights and realities of individuals who live with life-threatening illnesses. In fact, Google News shows a significant decline in coverage about palliative care from 2006 - 2009.

It is appropriate, therefore, that this year's theme for World Hospice and Palliative Care Day is “Discovering your voice.” Rather than relying on traditional media to pick up the cause, hospices and individuals around the world are encouraged to submit their own stories using digital media. They can submit their stories directly on the World Hospice and Palliative Care Day website. So far stories about palliative care have been shared from Portugal, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Malawi, Argentina, Belize, Nigeria, and beyond.

A significant challenge facing most hospices that would otherwise like to share their stories, however, is that their staff, patients, and volunteers haven't been trained in digital media production or even basic internet usage. It is for this reason that I took a scenic train ride from the Romanian capital of Bucharest to Braşov, where Hospice Casa Sperantei - a leader of palliative care in Romania and Eastern Europe - is training its staff how to use new media to 1.) spread more awareness about the daily realities of palliative care and 2.) tell the stories of patients to enable them to leave behind a legacy of their lives.

Last month Juhie featured excerpts of some of the testimonials from patients at the hospice. As you can see, most of the testimonials focused on the diseases which afflict hospice residents. In this workshop I wanted to emphasize that the testimonies and stories recounted on the project blog could be both fun and informative at the same time.

We decided to collaboratively create a storyboard and produce a video to tell a story in a creative way. After some deliberation the staff decided that they wanted to produce a farewell video for Iulia, the outgoing volunteer coordinator who is headed to medical school.

Later in the day Iulia, who has been involved in Hospice Casa Sperantei's blogging project, told me about some of the challenges they have been having in getting residents at the hospice to share their stories:

Still, the hospice staff is dedicated to moving the project forward to help spread more awareness about palliative care in Romania, and to help preserve the stories and memories of their patients. Anna, who is featured in the video with Iulia, will be taking over the role of volunteer coordinating and says that she is committed to the project.

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Felipe Vaz is the coordinator of Instituto Overmundo, which promotes access to knowledge and cultural diversity in Brazil through innovative practices in communication, intellectual property, and technology. Felipe describes Brazil's “LAN house revolution.” These LAN houses initially began as local networks where (mostly) young people would go to play multiplayer games like World of Warcraft. More recently they have connected to the internet and are used for social networking, chatting, and job searching. The estimated 90,000 LAN houses across Brazil account for 50% of available internet access in the country. These are illegal operations which don't have business permits and don't pay taxes. The Brazilian government so far has taken an adversarial position toward the LAN houses, arguing that they encourage young people to miss class. But others, like Brazilian blogger Jeimy Remir, think that LAN houses have a positive impact both for their owners and customers.

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Vanessa Mazal is a program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Global Development Program. In this interview she talks about the differences and complementary nature of media development and media for development. She also tells us about a new Gates Foundation initiative in partnership with Highway Africa.

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David Hoffman is the founder and president of Internews, one of the first media development organizations. In this video David explains how Internews got its start by coordinating a two-way satellite link-up between Soviet youth in Moscow and Americans at the 1982 US Festival sponsored by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak. He goes on to describe more of the history of the media development field, how funders can both help and hurt, and the role of citizen journalism in media development and civic participation.

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Ramsey Tesdell is the founder of 7iber.com, a citizen journalism community and training project based in Amman, Jordan. We met up with him at the Strengthening Independent Media program in Austria, which aims to map the new era of international media development. Ramsey explains the goals and activities of 7iber, his latest training efforts in Gaza, and the current state of donor investment in participatory media projects. You can learn more about Ramsey and 7iber at MediaShift and on Global Voices.

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