Earlier MTV Staying Alive Foundation published a video on the works of Repacted. From their website:

At the moment they are paying particular attention to youth in prisons and sex workers - both of which are high risk groups.

They are training 75 ‘change agents' (peer educators), organizing 3 youth symposiums, along with 11 community theatre outreach groups - complete with mobile testing units,

As if this weren't enough to keep co-founders Dennis and Collins busy, they're also creating and distributing a monthly magazine, establishing a support group and organising monthly life skills demonstration forums.

Recently the other co-founder Collins Odu Oduor published an update of the project detailing all the works it had done since 2001:

REPACTED’s work is unique in that it involves the community in coming up with solutions to the issues they face. We do this through the use of community theatre, in a method better known as “Magnet Theatre”. This method starts with tailor made community folk media mobilization techniques that pulls the audience to the magnet theatre site and enlists the audience in an active interactive discussion through a scripted performance designed to provoke the target audience’s feelings, attitudes and beliefs with an aim of inspiring positive behavior change.

Since 2005 REPACTED has been conducting theatre for development outreaches in the Adventist Relief and Development Agency, Abstinence and Behavior change for the youth project in two districts. REPACTED is a MTV Staying Alive Foundation two time award winner, the award is aimed at reaching youth in the Community, special learning institutions and Prisons with Magnet Theatre Outreaches and mobile VCT. Citizens’ Media Outreach is a project involving the community in video and photo blogging inclusive of basic computer skills. Funded by Rising global Voices, the project involves the training of community members in the use of information and communication technologies.

Here is a presentation showing the works of the Repacted project:

Now let us look what the Repacted bloggers are saying:

Collins Otieno Sailas informs:

Dancing stigma related to HIV\AIDS is a dance conveying a message to the community trying to educate on how to live with those people who are affected with the disease by loving, caring and excepting them back to the community because they are our brothers and sisters. Sawwa dancers are the ones staging the show at Nakuru players theater in October and after that we will take the stigma dance to various schools.

Eric Wanyama, an aspiring script and film director, who has managed to write his own script, discusses about his work:

Captive is a screenplay of a short film that fictionally poses a question on the fate and security of orphaned children. [..]

I have written the screenplay and together with REPACTED-Kenya, we would like to make the project a reality. The REPACTED-Kenya Members are ready to participate as the cast in the production together with other various members of the Nakuru Players Theater.

Eric also asks the readers for support of this project by monetary or other means.

Collins Odu informed recently:

Preparing for 2009 Mr. and Miss Red Ribbon. It will be better than the past events. We welcome all support from well wishers so as to meet the budget and continue fighting stigma and discrimination in the community. It is only through leadership that we can address societal and communal problems. Let us join hands and take the lead.

Images taken from Repacted Facebook group.

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HiperBarrio was represented at Ars Electronica by Álvaro Ramirez, Gabriel Jaime Vanegas, and Diego Gomez. Álvaro's presentation introduced the history and evolution of HiperBarrio and how the group of young bloggers and citizen journalists in San Javier La Loma have managed to maintain a sense of community while still introducing new members to remain open and inclusive. He stressed that HiperBarrio re-thinks the roles of libraries as more than just places to consume culture produced at the institutional level; but rather that they should serve as collective laboratories to produce and publish culture from the grassroots. HiperBarrio served as a model for Chile's national library network as it re-thought the role of its libraries for the digital era, and was also presented in the application by Fundación Empresas Públicas de Medellín which eventually led to a $1 million grant from the Gates Foundation. (Ramirez points out that none of the $1 million is currently budgeted for HiperBarrio or similar grassroots new media training programs.)

Álvaro referenced the story of Suso as an example of how citizen journalism is forming a process by which the young people discover more information about their own community and become invested in its future. He also pointed out media production is providing an appealing alternative to gangs and drugs for the community's young people. An article in Colombia's El Tiempo newspaper adds:

The project was presented to the public at Ars Electronica with a video which highlights the important role HiperBarrio plays to help young people find alternatives to crime, violence and drugs in a region that has been marked by the drug trafficking, guerrillas and paramilitaries.

“When people have no access to media, and are given the opportunity to tell their stories and show who there are, then they take that opportunity,” Ramirez said to the public.

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Pati Rakotomalala represented FOKO Madagascar at this year's Interdependence Day in Brussels, Belgium about the importance of listening to youth.

Pati later gave a presentation about her experience in Brussels at Madagascar's first-ever Barcamp.

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Mario Duran, one of the leaders of the Voces Bolivianas team in El Alto, put together this video for the attendees of the 2008 Global Voices Summit in Budapest, Hungary. It's a great brief reminder of what the Voces Bolivianas project is accomplishing.

1.) Introduction to ConVerGentes and HiperBarrio by Diego Ospina.
2.) The names and blog URLs of all of the podcasters.
3.) Project leader Gabriel Montoya gives an introduction to Campus Party, in which many of the ConVerGentes citizen journalists will be participating.
4.) What are the differences between Bogotá and Medellín?
5.) Deneiber introduces Ay Amor, Cuando Hablad las Miradas by Guayacán.
6.) What are the differences between La Loma and the rest of Medellín?
7.) Eliana introduces Crimen by Gustavo Cerati.
8.) What is Medellín's MetroCable system?
9.) Catalina introduces Heart of Stone by the Rolling Stones.
10.) San Andres introduces Primer Día by Julieta Venegas.
11.) Luisa Fernanda Alvarez introduces Autosuficiencia by Parálisis Permanente.
12.) What is the meaning of ‘Ave Maria'?
13.) Catalina concludes the first podcast.

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SET Director Kevin Wallen and volunteer Caleen Deidritch explain the history, process, and objectives of Prison Diaries, a project which teaches inmates at two of Kingston's correctional facilities how to portray the realities of life behind bars using blogs and podcasts.

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Nari Jibon's team of bloggers take us on a tour of Dhaka's slums, describing how it is that Bangladeshis live in some of the very poorest parts of the capital city. Because the sub-titles pass by so quickly, I will transcribe them here.

Dhaka, as the capital of Bangladesh, has grown into a busy city of about 11 million people and covers about 816 square kilometers. The climate is tropical as in the rest of Bangladesh; for most of the year it is warm with bright sunshine. Many of them come to Dhaka for finding jobs and to make some kind of livelihood. This is an area beside the Malimagh railway line where a slum village has been built by squatters. Most of the houses are made of bamboo lattice screen and tin roofs on a dirt floor. This is the only well to cover water for more than 100 families. All the people in this area use this well for bathing, drinking, and other activities.

The environment of a slum is very dirty. Water is dirty there and sanitation practices are unhealthy.

- What is your name?
- Mazed Mymensing
- Why did you come to Dhaka?
- I came to Dhaka due to poverty.
- What is your profession now?

Many people are living here. Of them, many men are working in shops, some are rickshaw pullers, some are day laborers, some are hawkers, etc. Women are also working outside to earn money for their family. Some women are domestic workers, some are day laborers, hawkers, street cake sellers, etc. Many of them beg for a living or for extra money.

- Where do you live?
- In the slum.
- Where is your home district?
- Khulna. I am a shopkeeper.

Most of the people of the slum are illiterate. Most of the children do not go to school. The children are playing [during the day] as they do not go to school. Slum people suffer from hunger, malnutrition, and different kinds of diseases.

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FOKO blogger and United Nations Club member Patricia exposes pollution at Lake Ankarihary near downtown Antananarivo. The video was submitted to MySpace's Film Your Issue contest. You can learn more about Patricia on a special podcast feature from April 26, 2008.

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As Taslima Akter of the Nari Jibon project writes on their blog:

13 February was the first day of spring. Spring is the most attractive season when nature wears new ornaments. As usual young people at Dhaka University campus had celebrated the first day of spring. Young women, dressed in red-bordered yellow saris, flowers in hairs to welcome the first day of spring. See more in the video …

You can find out more about spring in Bangladesh from Taslima Akter, Sherin Sultana, and Mohtarimun Nahar [Bipa].

On April 19, at eight different sites throughout six Bolivian cities, Voces Bolivianas will host Bolivian Voices Day, a one-day synchronized event that will train dozens of Bolivians how to start their own blogs and participate in both the national and global online conversations.

In this podcast with Voces Bolivianas founder, Eduardo Ávila, we hear about the closing ceremony of the workshop series in Santa Cruz as well as why Voces Bolivianas decided to organize a one-day training at various sites around the country.

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