The community bade farewell to the outgoing Director of Outreach, David Sasaki and welcomed the new Director Eduardo Ávila.

This year Rising Voices, in collaboration with the Heinrich Böll Foundation, awarded microgrant funding of up to €2500 to three Egyptian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to train citizen media to underrepresented groups in Egypt so that they can voice their opinions.

Now let us look at some of the notable news of the grantees community we featured in the Rising Voices website in 2010.

Featured Bloggers:

Throughout the year we interviewed bloggers from different Rising Voices projects and here is a list of those features.

Shinetsetseg (Shinee) Sukhbaatar

• Shinetsetseg (Shinee) Sukhbaatar from Nomad Green Project in Mongolia
• Olzod Boum-Yalagch from Nomad Green Project in Mongolia
• Saki Golafale from Ceasefire Liberia project in Liberia
• Nat Nyuan-Bayjay from Ceasefire Liberia project in Liberia
• Nora Catalina Urquijo from HiperBarrio project in Colombia
• Yesenia Corrales from HiperBarrio project in Colombia
• Edgar Andres Yana Lisme from Voces Boliviana in Bolivia
• Getutza from Blogging The Dreams Project in Romania
• Tahina Rakotomanarivo from FOKO in Madagscar
• Ahmed Awadalla from Exploring Taboos project in Egypt
• Randa AbulDahab from the Women of Minya Day by Day project in Egypt
• Sara Abd Al-Maktari from the Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques (EWMAT) project in Yemen
• Award Winning OLPC (XO) laptops Bloggers from Uruguay - Part 1, Part 2

The New Grantees Of 2010:

• Introduction to Exploring Taboos Project
• Introduction to Mokattam Blog Tales
• Introduction to Women of Minya Day by Day

Barcamps And Conferences:

Otgonsuren Jargal presenting Nomad Green at the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2010 in Chile. Image by Krzysztof Pawliszak/GV. CC BY

The Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2010 took place in May at Santiago Public Library in the capital of Chile. Four Rising Voices projects were presented during the two days of the summit. Here is a two part report (Part 1, Part 2) highlighting the presentations and the reactions from the members who attended the conference.

Photo of Catalina Restrepo speaking at BarCamp Santa Cruz. Photo used with permission by BarCampSCZ.

Catalina Restrepo of the HiperBarrio project in Medellín, Colombia was invited to speak at BarCamp Santa Cruz, Bolivia in January. The event also featured Hugo Miranda of Voces Bolivianas from Bolivia.

This year members of HiperBarrio were invited to the Campus Party in Colombia and was told to do something different, use the pin hole camera technique to record the activities of CampusBlog.

Contests:

In February the Best Of Malagasy Blogs (BOMBS) 2009 awards were announced. Several bloggers from FOKO, the Rising Voices grantee in Madagascar, won the awards.

Empowerment Of Women:

With the help of a Rising Voices microgrant, the project “Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques” is teaching blogging to female politicians, activists, and human right workers in Yemen to bring them in global conversation.

Ghaida'a Al Absi, the project leader, says: “EWAMT project is like a candle with other candles, which are lighting up the darkness in Yemen.”

Blogger Ahmad Awadalla of “Exploring Taboos” project conducts sexuality education workshops in Egypt and wrote about discussions about the topic of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) with his students.

Language:

Ruben Hilary of Voces Bolivianas project, with some local volunteers of El Alto, Bolivia, established the virtual community Jaqi Aru. The goal of the Jaqi Aru website is highlighting and spreading Aymara language in internet through creation of digital media contents, which involves translation, use of multimedia and social media tools.

Culture, Travel And Lifestyle:

Bus shaped balloon at the Festival de globos de La Loma 2010

The citizen journalists of the Rising Voices grantee Hiperbarrio shared some photos and videos of the Balloon festival of La Loma (Festival de globos de La Loma 2010).

Nine citizen journalists from Nomad Green in Mongolia visited Taiwan to learn more about Taiwan's social and environmental issues and local cultures and receive citizen media training.

Sustainability:

Hiperbarrio from Colombia finally got its legal identity this year as a nonprofit corporation. This allows the organization to continue to grow as they can be hired by public and private institutions for outreach activities. According to an agreement between the EPM Foundation Network and HiperBarrio from Colombia, citizen media outreach activities in 3 new communities in 3 libraries of Medellín (Villatina, La Esperanza and EPM) were started in 2010.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation awarded Ceasefire Liberia project a $10,000 grant to start a new arm called Ceasefire. This project will focus on creating a citizen media project for African immigrant and African-American youth in Staten Island based on the Ceasefire Liberia model.

Thanks to the bloggers of the different projects of Rising Voices we could read many stories from Liberia, Madagascar, Ivory Coast, Mongolia, Romania, Colombia, Yemen, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Kenya, Bolivia, Ukraine, Uruguay, etc. Some Rising Voices bloggers also participated in and contributed for the Blog Action Day 2010 and the One Day On Earth initiatives. We hope to continue hearing from them. The ‘Introduction to Global Citizen Media Guide' has been translated in Macedonian and Albanian.

We wish the members of the Rising Voices Community and our readers a happy and prosperous 2011.

Written by Rezwan
· comments (1)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

World AIDS Day 2009 in Singapore. Photo by 24seven Communications and used under a CC license.

Even though the 2010 UNAIDS Global Report released on November 23 provided some promising news, namely that the global infection rate for new cases has fallen by 19% over the last decade down from 3.1 million in 1999 to 2.6 million in 2009, it is still a disease that affects 33 million people. The report found that much of this progress can be attributed to behavioral change and prevention, as well as the fact that now approximately 5.2 million people have access to treatment, which makes it less likely for them to pass the virus to others.

This is definitely some good news, but when the statistics number in the millions, it is easy to think of each of 33 million people currently infected as just a demographical number. And in some parts of the world, the infection rate does not follow the global trend, which is a reminder that the fight is far from over. That is where citizen media, and Rising Voices' focus, can come into play by supporting those projects that aim to put a personal face on each of those cases as a member of a local community and to show that HIV/AIDS continues to be a pressing concern.

More and more bloggers, who are either HIV-positive themselves or who are strong advocates for those affected by the disease, have been joining the blogosphere. A map of HIV-positive bloggers and groups who blog about HIV/AIDS was compiled in 2008:

View Blogging Positively in a larger map

Many of these bloggers, such as Juan Carlos [es] from Ecuador, Hector Toscano [es] from Argentina, and Qi Kuan [zh] from Taiwan, continue to blog two years after initially being added to the interactive map.

In addition, Rising Voices grantees, such as Repacted based in Nakuru, Kenya continues its tradition of supporting the Mr. and Ms. Red Ribbon campaign. The campaign is an annual beauty pageant for people living with HIV/AIDS as a way to “celebrate beauty and fight stigma.” AIDS Right Congo, has been publishing bilingual articles about the disease on their blog. In Ukraine, Pavel Kutsev of the Drop-In Center is another advocate who has written about harm reduction practices that can help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Rising Voices has also been introduced to a number of new projects using citizen media around the world, such as the Key Correspondents. This project is managed by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and HealthDev.net which supports 250 citizen journalists in 50 countries who write about public health issues including HIV/AIDS. Each citizen journalist shares stories about personal experiences or how the disease has affected their local community. For example, the citizen journalist “Fungaizim” from Zimbabwe recently wrote about a firsthand experience at a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center (VCT) in Harare in an effort to show whether or not the service can use improvement.

The counsellor assigned to me was a woman who seemed very disinterested in the task of counselling. In fact all she asked me to tell her was where I lived, my age and what brought me to the centre for a test. There was no real dialogue being sought here, just the basic facts about who I was, which is definitely not the way to create a safe environment for a client.

[…]

As she asked her questions, I began to question in my head whether this would be the type of counsellor that people, particularly young people, would feel they could confide in. I mean, even if she asked, I don’t think anyone would feel too comfortable divulging their sexual history to a person so obviously unapproachable. Ultimately, the counselling function of the process is about creating a relationship from the beginning of the journey right to the end, by trying to ensure that the client doesn’t drop out at any stage of the process.

And once the results were available, Fungaizim was deeply concerned about how the counselor presented the outcome. It was noted that it was a different counselor than the one who was involved in the pre-test conversation.

As the post-test counsellor prepared to show me my results, she asked me a deeply loaded question, “Are you sure you won’t kill yourself if you find that you are HIV positive today?” If that isn’t the epitome of the very stigma that we are trying to conquer through testing, then I don’t know what is. How can a counsellor speak in that way and even suggest such a negative reaction to a positive test as death?

Other Key Correspondents that write about the issue HIV/AIDS are based in Cambodia, Zambia, Uganda, among others.

This active participation in the use of citizen media to raise awareness, bring personal stories to light, and help reduce stigma about HIV/AIDS indicates that there is growing interest in the use of these digital tools. This is an ongoing interest of the Rising Voices community. In 2008, members of the RV community came together to hold a series of discussions and interactive live chats about how citizen media can help encourage conversations about the disease and its effect on society. From that, a year later, the Blogging Positively e-guide was developed, released, and subsequently translated into four languages.

In commemoration of World AIDS Day, members of this Blogging Positively community will come together on December 2nd to discuss the next steps for the guide and how to build relationships with projects, organizations, and bloggers that hold this common interest. The live chat (Facebook Event) is open to all interested in this topic. Please visit Rising Voices on December 2nd at 4 PM GMT (11 am New York, 2 pm Buenos Aires, 4 pm London, 6 pm Cape Town, Beirut, 7 pm Nairobi, 9:30 pm New Delhi).

Link to the live chat platform.

Written by Eddie Avila
· comments (0)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Sigh reads - Approach those with AIDA . They are in need of our help. Image by Flickr user Robert Guerra. CC BY-NC-SA

There were 240,000 people living with HIV in Central Africa in 2005 according to UNAIDS estimate. Blandine Louzolo and Sylvie Niombo of the Rising Voices grantee Azur Development describes (translated from French by Patricia Santiago):

HIV-positive women are stigmatized, and discriminated against, because of their serological status. The stigmatization begins at home, and is often conveyed through piercing words and hurtful glances.

On the other hand women who are HIV positive often become victims of blackmail from their husband’s families.

With the help of a Micro-grant awarded by Rising Voices, AZUR Development organization trained communication officers of different AIDS organizations in Congo in digital story telling, podcasting, and the creation of blogs. The goal was that these participants would document the stigma and discrimination of people infected and affected by HIV and AIDS in Congo and use them as an advocacy tools.

The bloggers of the AIDS Right Congo are continuing with their efforts which is evident from their recent blog posts. Jean Thibaut Ngoyi reports (translated from French to English by Lauren Messina) that Congo does not have a law on protection and cares for those infected with HIV/AIDS. The blogger highlights the situation in Congo:

In the northern part of Congo, specifically Makoua (more than 600 km from Brazzaville), on-site management of HIV is done at the hospital and the Malieré center. The biological examinations aren’t done there, patients are referred to Owando. In this locality, there doesn’t exist any organisation fighting against Aids. Therefore, community measures for prevention and care are nonexistent.

Jean Thibaut Ngoyi also wrote earlier:

People living with HIV/AIDS in the Congo continue to live with stigma and discrimination at their work places and within the hospitals of the Congo. Recently, AZUR Development, an NGO based in the Congo, with the support of the National Foundation for Democracy (NED), recognized this reality and organized meetings and workshops throughout the country on the rights and duties of people with HIV/AIDS.

Marien Nzikou-Massala argues (Translated from French to English by Patricia Santiago) that conversations are needed to improve the defense of people living with HIV. The blogger informs about the works of right based organizations in this regard:

The member associations and NGOs within the AIDS Africa Network (Réseau Sida Afrique) conducted missions for international exchanges in Benin, in Congo, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), between December 2009, April, and June 2010. [..]

The activities conducted in these missions included support groups to bring awareness of the law, meetings with healthcare workers, evaluations concerning the accessibility of treatments and information for people infected with HIV, and sharing on good practices. These activities were hosted in Congo by AZUR Development, and in Benin, by The Beninese Development Association (ABD).

Marien Nzikou-Massala informs that NGOs in DRC are working to reduce the stigma and discrimination of people living with HIV/AIDS in hospital and work environments.

Sylvie Niombo transcribes an interview of Simon Moubolo, HIV/AIDS project Assistant at AZUR Development in Brazzaville and Régine Goma, Co-ordinator of the Regional Bureau for Information and Prevention of AIDS (ARIPS). The interview was taken by AIDS African Network. Simon and Regine tells how “Congolese AIDS activists share their experiences with their peers in an initiative to promote human rights”.

The Azur Weblog “Congolese Women On The Web” describes [fr] how the Congolese women are speaking out on the web against sexual harassment.

Written by Rezwan
· comments (0)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Participants at the FTX workshop organized by AZUR Development

During March 31 - April 03, 2010 AZUR Development concluded a training workshop as a part of the FTX (Feminist Tech Exchange) program supported by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC PARF). A number of girls and women from Brazzaville, Pointe Noire and Kinkala have participated in the training on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to combat violence against women and girls.

Sylvie Niombo writes in the Congolese Women On The Web blog:

During the three days, participants exchanged views on relevant issues such as judicial procedures to follow for women and girls victims of violence, the presence of Congolese women in the blogosphere and also the use of citizen media for women citizens' rights activists.

The training modules were on video production. Women have learned to manipulate digital cameras, film, capturing the elements on the computer and video editing. They left to the field to interview women and men and produced a report on domestic violence.

It was a joy to read the blog posts written and published by the participants of the social networking workshop. They have learned to use blogger.com, and also have registered on Facebook and discovered an effective way to communicate with their contacts. They have created galleries of photos with Flickr.com and appreciated tool that allows them to show the world the achievements of their organizations. (machine translation)

You can learn more about the workshop from this video [fr] uploaded by Gisele975:

Princely Indeou at the Congo Portal reports:

The workshop participants will discuss issues relating to women's rights in the Republic of Congo, the contribution of Congolese women in the blogosphere, documenting cases of violence. After the training, each participant will be able to seek grants to support the APC WNSP information technologies and fight against all sorts of violence against Congolese women and girls. (machine translation).

Blandine Louzolo and Sylvie Niombo informs in the Aids rights Congo project blog that in Togo 60% of women are living with HIV:

The situation of HIV positive widows and children orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in this country do not differ from those of other countries in West Africa. When widowed, they are dispossessed of their property, sometimes driven out of the marital home and can and blackmail on the disclosure of their HIV status.

Emma And Sylvie at FTX training by Azur Development

Sylvie Niombo also wrote ( Translated by Sarah Hurwit) a report on how HIV-infected women in urban areas of Congo are affected by housing problems and how it affects their well-being and health as well as that of their families. She tells:

In Congo, women are most affected by HIV/AIDS: at least 4.1% of Congolese women are infected. Women living with HIV/AIDS face discrimination and stigmatization on a daily basis, despite the fact that they are entitled to the same health and other rights as all Congolese citizens. They are already lat a disadvantage in a country where the some of the provisions in family code are flawed and where society imposes moral and physical abuse on widows so that the situation of widows living with HIV is of concern. The purchasing power of women infected with HIV/AIDS is low, which does not differ from that of the average Congolese woman, and is further reduced because of their state of vulnerability.

Written by Rezwan
· comments (1)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

The international campaign, which works to mobilize individuals and groups globally to end all forms of violence against women, kicked off on November 25, the 10th anniversary of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Throughout the campaign's 16 days, AIDS Rights Congo, which received a Rising Voices micro grant last year, carried out various activities, including youth outreach in cyber cafes, raising awareness in schools, sending out special editions of electronic newsletters, online discussions and blogging.

Based in Brazzaville, Congo, the AZUR Development's AIDS Rights Congo trains communication officers and leaders of local HIV and AIDS organizations in digital story telling, podcasting, and blogging to help document the stigma and discrimination faced by people infected by HIV/AIDS in Congo. For the past 16 days, AIDS Rights Congo went beyond blogging about HIV/AIDS issues, also covering various aspects of gender violence. They blogged on their project blog, as well as for Take Back the Tech!, a campaign that works to reclaim information and communication technologies to end violence against women.

Whether it's domestic violence at home, sexual harassment at work, or rape by husbands or strangers, violence against women and girls occurs in all parts of the world, including Congo. The United Nations Population Fund says it is the most prevalent and least punished crime in the world. According to some estimates, up to 70 percent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime, usually from husbands, intimate partners or someone they know.

But in this post, written on the first day of the campaign, Blandine Louzolo of AZUR Development says that most women in Congo don't even know that The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women exists, particularly in rural areas where women are often overlooked:

The real problem lies in the lack of community mobilization on a large scale, but also the fact that organizations and the government seem to work only with women in the cities…

…Our activism is through information, because without information no one can survive, and also women could end the impunity of perpetrators of violence.

Though it can be challenging to blog in Congo, thanks to the cost of acquiring computer equipment and poor Internet connections in cyber cafes, one woman is using it to empower women. This post focuses on Arlette Raymonde Bakou, who is responsible for multilateral cooperation at the Ministry for the Promotion of Women and Inclusion of Women in Development in the Congo. Bakou began blogging this year on women’s rights issues as a way to reach those who don't watch TV or listen to the radio, particularly young people:

The blog idea came to her through her work writing articles for local newspapers. ‘I felt that having my own blog would be a thrilling experience,' she explained. Arlette is one of the few female Congolese bloggers who writes about violence against women and children. For her the internet is a tool of research and work, and as she so succinctly put it, ‘it is a tool of our times.'

Arlette explains that ‘my blog posts cover a variety of subjects; I discuss everything from women’s problems to urban planning, environment and issues facing society.'

In her blog, Arlette discusses sexual revolution, sexual politics, sex and morality and premarital sex. For example, her take on sex education in schools is that ‘It is a good thing in that the lessons teach children about the dangers of free sex, but it also puts temptation in the way of children who previously had a traditional view of sexuality.'

World AIDS Day, which raises awareness on HIV/AIDS issues globally, also occurred during the past 16 days, on December 1. In honor of the day, AIDS Rights Congo focused on a group of women who are vulnerable to sexual violence and often neglected in the fight against HIV/AIDS — those with disabilities. Women with disabilities are also affected and infected by the disease, says Blandine Louzolo, but often overlooked by AIDS organizations. But these women should have the same opportunities to fiercely fight against the disease.

Women with disabilities are exposed to the HIV virus. They are often characterized as living in a world apart, not valued in general society, and are the victims of isolationism and discrimination. If they are infected with HIV/AIDS, their HIV status causes even greater discrimination.

In the Congo, there is a lack of commitment to this vulnerable group - an oversight which leads directly to the propagation of HIV/AIDS.

Women with disabilities are not incapable of contracting AIDS. A woman with a disability can maintain a healthy sexual relationship. She may, however, also be more vulnerable to acts of sexual violence. All women with disabilities have the right to be informed about HIV/AIDS and, furthermore, our constitution grants the right to health for all citizens. Why then exclude women with disabilities from the major programs in the fight against AIDS? Faced with being forgotten, these women must actively involve themselves and claim their rights.

Olga Blanche Zissi Bintebe says that in addition to other measures, effective legislation is necessary to fight all forms of violence against all women.

Fighting violence against women necessarily involves an efficient and adapted legislation. Unfortunately, the current Congolese legal arsenal doesn’t allow for the sufficient protection of women against violence because the existing incriminations don’t reprimand all the violent acts that the women are likely to be subjected to.

The revision of the penal and family code undertaken by the government represents a great opportunity to reinforce the protection of women. It will allow us to make illegal the violent acts that are not taken into account by the present code and to rewrite certain articles to make them better adapted to the definition of violence as outlined by a 1993 declaration of the United Nations.

She then goes through, step-by-step, how to change the penal and family code so it's more effective in protecting Congolese women and outlines three steps nongovernmental organizations can take to aid in the fight against gender violence.

Written by Juhie Bhatia
· comments (1)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

The Blogging Positively project began two years ago when Kenyan blogger Serina Kalande, volunteered to lead a working group to discuss how citizen media can best be implemented in the field of HIV/AIDS. Many of the project proposals we've received at Rising Voices have been related to spreading awareness about the pandemic. We wanted to learn from those proposals - and also from existing citizen media initiatives - to better understand how new media tools can be used most effectively to spread awareness and encourage discussion about HIV/AIDS-related topics. We also wanted to better understand some of the risks and obstacles facing bloggers who are HIV-positive, or who regularly write about HIV/AIDS-related topics.

Three online chats brought together people from all over the world, and from a wide range of fields. In addition to the creation of this guide, the participants of the chats collaborated on the creation of a map-based directory of HIV-positive bloggers who bravely defy stigma and discrimination to communicate their situation to the rest of the world.

To celebrate the release of the Blogging Positively guide, which has been two years in the making, today we begin a one-week campaign to update our map of HIV positive bloggers. If you are a positive blogger, or if you have suggestions for links to add to the directory, please send a message to Global Voices Public Health Editor Juhie Bhatia.

The Blogging Positively guide was authored by Janet Feldman of the Kenya AIDS Intervention Prevention Project Group and ActAlive, which encourages the use of the arts and media to address HIV/AIDS and other human-development challenges. Additional contributions were made by Solana Larsen, Sahar Romani, and Juhie Bhatia. Daudi Were coined the term “Blogging Positively.”

The importance and impact of this guide depends on our collective ability to get it into the hands of activists, and to encourage their contributions to the global conversation that is curated and amplified everyday on the Global Voices website. Please consider sharing this with your network of friends and blogging about it. If there are HIV/AIDS organizations and support groups in your region, please send them a copy of the guide.

Finally, if you would like to learn more about what bloggers around the world have to say about the AIDS pandemic, don't miss our Conversations for a Better World series which has so far featured commentary about HIV/AIDS from bloggers based in Africa, China, Cambodia, and the Middle East & North Africa.

Written by David Sasaki
· comments (1)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

There are 79,000 people (or 3.5 percent of all adults) in Congo living with HIV/AIDS. AZUR Development's AIDS Rights Congo project, funded through a Rising Voices grant, is working on documenting the stigma and discrimination that these people face. They are doing this in part by posting stories of their experiences on a blog. Through the project, communication officers and leaders of local HIV and AIDS organizations have also been trained in digital story telling, podcasting, and blogging. Each communication officer is using these newfound skills to share stories of how HIV/AIDS is affecting the local community where he or she works.

Citizen media training session for communication officers and leaders of local HIV and AIDS organizations.

The latest posts on the project's blog reflect how different segments of Congo's HIV-positive community have been impacted by the stigma that accompanies having the disease. A few of the posts focus specifically on women, who make up 59 percent of those living with HIV/AIDS in Congo.

For example, a post by Dieudonnée Blandine Louzolo, AZUR Development's Communication Assistant, discusses how the quality of health care is compromised for HIV-positive women. Though HIV/AIDS services have been expanded in the city of Pointe-Noire, the negative attitude of health professionals still poses an obstacle to these women getting proper care. It's a catch 22 for many of these women: they're encouraged to get tested for HIV, but if they test positive they often pay a price. The post elaborates on how this applies to pregnant women.

Health professionals working at hospitals, who should be providing moral and psychological support for the patient, are leaving women at birthing beds as they fear HIV infection; thus some recommendations of ethics are no longer fulfilled.

An HIV-positive woman lost her baby during childbirth at a hospital in Pointe-Noire because she was HIV positive and no midwife wanted to touch her. Many of them after treatment with PMTCT [Program for Prevention of Mother to Child] are abandoned… Another HIV-positive pregnant woman was saved by a midwife trainee, although her child died after birth; again in this case the midwife feared infection.

In maternity hospitals, women with HIV do not know what to do if a midwife asks them to wear gloves covering their hands and arms. Sometimes their HIV status is disclosed to their families by health professionals without their permission…

…Rejection, reluctance, and the abandonment of women infected with HIV continues. AIDS activists should act to stop such discrimination, which violates the right to health care for HIV-positive women.

Sylvie Niombo, the project's leader and executive director of AZUR Development, writes a post about another group of HIV-positive women who experience discrimination: indigenous women. AZUR Development helped conduct a project about home-based care for indigenous women living with HIV/AIDS in the province of Lékoumou. This region has the highest rate of HIV in Congo. In the post Niombo reflects on the project's outcomes:

Called pygmies, the indigenous people in the province of Lékoumou live in extreme poverty and away from the majority of the population (the Bantu). They live in huts, surviving thanks to the products of hunting and gathering in the forests. Pygmies have little access to education and basic social services. They are discriminated against by the Bantu people, who generally consider themselves superior to pygmies.

Many pygmy women and men serve as cheap labor for the Bantu people. But when HIV/AIDS gets involved, it further complicates an already precarious situation. Indigenous women are also vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and doubly stigmatized….

…When they come for the first consultation at the hospital in Sibiti, after testing HIV positive, indigenous women do not usually return. That’s understandable. Who will pay for transportation, meals and to stay in Sibiti so they might hopefully survive HIV/AIDS? The answer is easy to find: nobody! Already regarded as ‘less than nothing' by some Bantu people, it is difficult to imagine that they can look at them.

AZUR Development and ACIP wanted to create something new, implementing a project to train HIV-positive indigenous and Bantu women to take care of themselves and their peers.

HIV-positive women aren't the only ones being stigmatized though. Dieudonnée Blandine Louzolo also discusses how having HIV/AIDS can affect prisoners in Congo. The post shares a story about a male prisoner in Pointe-Noire and how his and other prisoner's stories reflect the need to advocate for the rights of those living with HIV/AIDS, rather than just focusing on prevention.

At Pointe-Noire, Congo, a HIV-positive married man and father was released from prison when the police became aware of his HIV status. The deep meaning of his story must be analyzed.

We will never tire of saying that HIV/AIDS continues to be a subject of controversy and stigma even in police stations.

An HIV-positive man who had committed an offence was jailed at the police station in his neighborhood and was waiting for the outcome of the procedure that was underway. He was released because the policemen feared that he would infect other prisoners.

Blogging is one way that AZUR Development is trying to bring these stories of discrimination to the forefront. Another vehicle they're using to combat the stigma and raise awareness of issues related to HIV/AIDS is radio. The organization has produced various radio programs with CJESS, a youth group in Pointe-Noire that looks at sexuality issues. Niombo elaborates on how these radio broadcasts are helping to shift the way people perceive those with HIV/AIDS:

‘This is not content that we used to listen to,' said listeners. Herman Malanda, CJESS Coordinator and host of the radio programme, said that the listeners were surprised and interested in the programs. SMS and calls were made requesting more information on AIDS treatment and how people could live with HIV.

What was interesting about these radio programmes is that they have broken the taboo and helped deal with the lack of information on how a family can care for a person infected with HIV.

We often hear that parents don’t want to spend their money on an HIV-positive person, since the person is regarded as ‘dying' and therefore there's no need to waste their time. These radio programmes therefore are aimed at educating families about the fact that living with HIV is not a crime and everyone should be loved. Solidarity should be shown for people living with HIV.

The organization plans to run other radio programs in the future on focused on HIV/AIDS and violence against women and girls.

Written by Juhie Bhatia
· comments (3)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

AZUR Development is based in Brazzaville, Congo, but they work to provide leadership in the socio-cultural and economic development of all of Congo. They launched the AIDS Rights Congo project last year with the help of a Rising Voices micro grant. Through this project they are training communication officers and leaders of local HIV and AIDS organizations in digital story telling, podcasting, and blogging to help document the stigma and discrimination faced by people infected by HIV/AIDS in Congo.

During the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, AIDS Rights Congo participated in Take Back The Tech's campaign to reclaim information and communication technologies to end violence against women. As part of this, AIDS Rights Congo blogged about the rights of women infected and affected by HIV/AIDS and shared their thoughts on violence against women.

AIDS Rights Congo also aired radio broadcasts in Pointe-Noire from December 1 to 10 on the topic of violence against women. To encourage people to reclaim technology such as cell phones to achieve positive outcomes, they asked listeners to send SMS messages or call in with their thoughts on the issue. As incentive, two mobile phones were awarded to listeners who sent SMS messages appealing to fight sexual violence against women and girls in Pointe-Noire. Sylvie Niombo, the project’s leader, talks about reactions to their broadcasts:

The SMS response was huge and the responses will be online soon. The SMS talks about sexual violence, and domestic violence against women and girls. It was a good way of expression. And then after posting them on the Internet, we will invite readers to comment.

AIDS Rights Congo has already posted some of the SMS responses, which show how Congolese women and girls experience domestic and sexual violence, and how men perceive violence against women.. For example, this post lists SMS responses received from Congolese women who have suffered violence because of their husbands:

Despite all forms of violence that I suffer at the hands of my husband, I consider them as accidents and I think he will change.

We are forced to suffer all forms of violence, because we love our men, despite their violence, and also because of the children. And sometimes we don't have a good social situation, because there is nothing for us anymore at our parents' home.

Yes, you're scared of losing our home if ever we think to lodge a complaint or ask ourselves where will we live, especially when you don't work.

We don't know who to turn to when we are victims of violence, because our friends give bad advice.

For fear of further abuse, we are sometimes obliged to go along with the decisions of our husbands, even when they are bad.

My husband asked me for forgiveness only once since we've been together.

Why don't you raise these kinds of issues all the time? Thank you for the advice.

Does justice really care about these kinds of problems? When I went to the police (PSP), I was told we had to settle amicably, because he is my husband.

In this post, AIDS Rights Congo shares SMS messages sent by men expressing their thoughts on violence against women:

Men taking alcohol is one of the main causes of men beating women.

I would say that domestic violence is a strategy for men to have control of the home, and so the family in general. For if a man is not violent, the woman does not pay attention to you.

If my wife takes me to court, I drive her out of my home. I replace her with another. Many women enjoy violence to live well.

Sometimes the women themselves are the causes of the violence against them.

Our women are truly victims, because they don't dare speak for fear of being hit again.

When a man marries, he must give laws. If these laws are not respected? It is important to apply force.

In addition to the work done with the AIDS Rights Congo project, AZUR Development also carried out other activities in Pointe-Noire during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. They held a workshop to raise awareness on violence against women, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS, which was attended by more than 160 women, as well as advocacy meetings defending the rights of HIV-positive women and their families.

Translations of French blog posts into English by Jennifer Brea.

Written by Juhie Bhatia
· comments (0)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

AZUR Development trained communication officers and leaders of local HIV and AIDS organizations at its head office in Brazzaville, Congo, this past summer on advanced Internet usage and how to create digital stories. Specifically, the participants were taught the basics of blogging and how to use Flickr to publish photos. They also learned how to use Windows Movie Maker. Roméo Mbengou, AZUR Development's Information Coordinator, elaborates on this training session.

To enable these organizations to document their activities, digital cameras were awarded to the participants. They did not hide their satisfaction. According to Jean Pierre Mahoungou of the association Bomoyi, ‘This training allows us to better document our experiences in the fight against AIDS now that we now have cameras to take pictures.'

This training will lead to the production of articles, reports or stories by digital communication officers.

Internet training session

The trained communication officers and members of AZUR Development have started posting a wide range of stories on their observations and experiences with HIV/AIDS in Congo. For example, Mbengou interviews Parfait Bitsindou, a psychologist at the Center for Ambulatory Treatment in Brazzaville, about issues related to psychological support for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Another post describes a community dinner organized by a women's organization to help curb malnutrition among those with HIV/AIDS. A nutritionist was on hand to provide advice on how to eat healthy at home. The dinner brought together more than 45 people living with HIV/AIDS.

Cooking at a community dinner for those with HIV/AIDS

Sylvie Niombo, leader of this Rising Voices project, posts a story about discriminatory remarks made by the morgue director and town councillor in Pointe-Noire, Congo. She says:

On 3 September the morgue director and town councillor publicly insulted people living with HIV/AIDS who were going to Adolphe Cissé hospital to support friends who were in a more critical state of illness as well as PLWHA had come for the food distribution programme. It would seem that the reason behind this is that a taxi had parked badly and held up traffic for a few minutes and thus prevented him from passing. The despicable abuse is said to have been hurled towards those living with HIV, even going so far as calling them the living dead who would become ice cubes in the morgue in the near future.

In response, people living with the virus and associations fighting against AIDS met with the town’s mayor to criticize this public abuse and request the municipality's support to sensitize authorities and organizations on the rights of those living with HIV.

Davy Herman Malanda posts another account of discrimination, sharing the story of Bernadette (a pseudonym), a young woman who is a second-hand clothing vendor at the Tié-Tié market in Pointe-Noire. She is the breadwinner of the family, but this changes when she discovers she's HIV positive. A friend she confides in divulges Bernadette's HIV status, breaking her trust and changing her life:

Her colleagues and clients from the market are informed that she is HIV-positive. Very few clients come from now on to buy at Bernadette’s table. Her life becomes difficult, and she has difficulty in making ends meet. At the market, her neighbors immediately desert their tables; which even attract the attention of those responsible for managing the market, who, conscious of the fact that having a table at the market is a difficult thing, are surprised to find empty tables around her. The situation has put everyone on alert, and those passing from far away can hear the neighbor’s gossip on the fact that she is a woman infected with HIV. However there are no outward signs that Bernadette is sick, one cannot read it on her face. The illness is not at an advanced stage and she is not on ARV [Antiretroviral] treatment. She is simply a normal young woman.

In a setback, traumatized by the situation, she stops her little shop.

In another post Aurelie, who lives in Brazzaville, shares her story, one that is filled with hope. She talks about how she was diagnosed with HIV, the news hitting her “like a ton of bricks ” and filling her with despair. But Aurelie goes on to describe the support she received from her family and an HIV/AIDS organization.

One day, I went to the hospital to get treatment, and I met a woman from the Positive Women Association of Congo (AFPC). She explained to me what she did and invited me to take part in an open group discussion. At first, I didn’t think it was for me, but the day I went to the discussion, I quickly fit in. I was delighted by the prevailing atmosphere, my morale was reinforced, and no more worries. I had friends, thus a new sun appeared in my life. I was simply myself and not shut in a room to mope…

…The support of my family and the support I found at the AFPC really changed my life. I realize that we’re not alone. I’m a woman, and I lead a normal life like everyone. That’s my story.

Written by Juhie Bhatia
· comments (3)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

The organization is now taking things a step further, by documenting the stigma and discrimination faced by people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in Congo. They are training communication officers and leaders of local HIV and AIDS organizations, members of their AIDS Network Africa initiative, in digital story telling (including video and photography), podcasting, and blogging. Each communication officer will then use this technology to share stories of how HIV/AIDS is affecting the local community where he or she works. This project is one of the six new health-focused citizen media outreach projects that were announced in June by Rising Voices and Open Society Institute’s Health Media Initiative.

It is hoped that these documented stories will be used as a tool for advocacy and education, helping to promote the rights of HIV-positive people. Currently 79,000 people are living with HIV in Congo, and 6,400 people in the country died of AIDS last year. Sylvie Niombo, the project's leader, says that these people are constantly subjected to discrimination and stigma, adding:

People living with HIV/AIDS have some of their rights harmed because of their serological status and receive very little assistance in defending them…This project allows us to document the stigmatization and discrimination of people living with HIV, in particular women infected by HIV in Congo, in their own words and those of the organizations of which they are members.

AZUR Development's main office is located in Brazzaville, the capital and largest city in Congo. The city rests on the west side of the Congo River across from Kinshasa, the capital city of neighboring country the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This video shows some images of Brazzaville.

Though the organization is based in Brazzaville, it works to provide leadership in the socio-cultural and economic development of all of Congo and Africa. Their projects range from providing leadership skills to young women to using information and communication technologies for development to work focused on HIV/AIDS. Technology has played a big role in their work. They started blogging in 2006, writing about the organization's activities in Congo, and then launched a blog on the rights of native people (Pygmy groups) in Congo. They also coordinate an initiative called AIDS Network Africa, for which they have a blog that recounts stories, testimonies, and activities on HIV/AIDS and malaria from the network's members, and have conducted workshops on the use of computers and the Internet. These photos show some of their projects.

For this particular project, the organization has conducted two workshops in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire, training 15 communication officers and leaders of HIV and AIDS organizations on how to create blogs and multimedia stories. Some of these organizations were also given digital cameras. Through their blogs and digital stories, these trained communication officers and organization leaders will share stories about the daily lives of people living with HIV/AIDS, the challenges they confront, and the stigmatization and discrimination they face. Niombo elaborates:

People living with HIV/AIDS are laid off because of their illness, sometimes without accompanying measures; very few employers agree to give responsibility to HIV positive employees; they are dispossessed of their property by their families especially when they are in the final stages of the illness; they do not have access to quality care and to antiretroviral treatment in rural areas; and very few of the people living with HIV/AIDS know what their rights are and how they can contribute to safeguarding and defending them. In particular, women infected with HIV are the most vulnerable. They are accused of having brought the illness into the family and are abandoned or chased from their homes.

Niombo says that most of the Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire workshop participants discovered blogs for the first time. In addition to documenting stories, they are also using blogging to publish information about their organizations, since most don't have Web sites. However, she adds that Internet access is usually only available in Internet cafés. Since these cafés cost at least $1 US an hour, the communication officers are only able to go once or twice a week. Still, she says, the participants are grateful:

The organizations welcomed this action [the workshops] of AZUR Development, because they told us that they always asked their local partners to strengthen their capabilities in the efficient use of the Internet to no avail. This project thus responded to a real need in the field to make use of technology to advance the rights of people living with HIV.

AZUR Development has finished the initial training, and has began publishing the communication officers' articles on the project’s blog in French and English. The next step is to buy audio equipment, so they can begin podcast training.

Interview with Sylvie Niombo translated from French by Sabriya Fisher.

Written by Juhie Bhatia
· comments (5)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper