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Rising Voices Year in Review 2011

Eddie Avila — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:06:58 +0000

The year started out with news from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region about citizen uprisings that would alter the course of history throughout this part of the world. The turn of events in Egypt, in particular, hit close to home with Rising Voices because of our close connection to our three grantee projects in Cairo and in Upper Egypt. Obviously some of the projects were placed on hold during this uncertain time, but many of the project leaders and participants took to citizen media as a way to express their thoughts and feelings about the revolution. In addition, the day before the infamous internet shut-down by the government, we also heard from one of the project leaders via Skype, who spoke about her participation in the citizen action.

Podcast with Nesma by risingvoices

Digital Natives with a Cause?

In early February, Rising Voices partnered with HIVOS and the Centre for Internet and Society to organize the Latin America and the Caribbean regional workshop of the Digital Natives with a Cause? project. The workshop held on February 8-10, 2011 in Santiago, Chile invited 23 young people actively using technology in their daily lives for social action and creative expression to share their experiences with others from their region.

Digital AlterNatives book

Fifteen countries from the region were represented at the workshop, which was the third in a series of regional events that took also place in Tapei and Johannesburg in 2010. The information compiled from all three of the workshops helped form the basis of the final book project “Digital AlterNatives” that was released in September 2011. This book features essays from the workshop participants, facilitators, and others who are working in this space. You can download the entire book here.

Welcoming Newest Grantees

Our first global-wide open call for microgrant proposals in nearly two years yielded an unprecedented level of interest. Rising Voices received more than 750 applications from more than 90 countries from individuals and organizations interested in implementing a citizen media outreach project in their local community. Reading through every proposal each filled with creative ideas, the selection committee recognized the ongoing need in these communities and it was a difficult, yet thorough process to select five projects.

In early March, we announced the five selected projects:

Youth leaders and children in the neighborhood of Enterramento in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau.

We plan to launch the open call for the next round of microgrant proposals in early 2012.

Blogging Positively

Interest in the Blogging Positively working group continued in 2011 with members of the Global Voices Lingua community that helped with the translation of the e-guide into Swahili and Russian. In addition, several blog posts highlighting the use of citizen media in discussing HIV/AIDS, as well as interviews with bloggers were featured on Rising Voices in 2011. We closed out the year with the commemoration of World AIDS Day in December 1 by promoting the use of the hashtag #BlogPos (blogging positively).

Partnerships

Over the course of 2011, Rising Voices has been reaching out to organizations and individuals that share our mission, and often times these connections result in concrete collaborations to help spread the reach of citizen media in underrepresented communities. One of these partnerships took place in April 2011 with the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. As part of their Human Rights Defenders Initiative, Rising Voices was invited to organize a panel of individuals that have been using citizen media to advance the cause of women's rights around the world. We invited Fatma Emam from the RV grantee project Exploring Taboos and Jasmeen Patheja, founder of the Blank Noise project in India to take part in the event. The attendees of the conference “Religion, Belief, and Women's Rights” came primarily from Sub-Saharan Africa, the MENA region, and Southeast Asia, and were able to hear firsthand experiences and learn how they might be able to use citizen media to further their human rights work. Following the panel, there was a hands-on session to ask specific questions about using citizen media.

Fatma Emam from the project Exploring Taboos project with Former President Jimmy Carter

Underrepresented Languages

Based on some of our experiences in Bolivia of using citizen digital media to promote the use of underrepresented languages on the web, we knew that this type of activity was much more widespread. Over the past year, we've featured a wide range of initiatives using blogs, podcasts, video blogs, Twitter, and Facebook to encourage current speakers, as well as the next generation of speakers to create their own content and connect with others from these language communities. We've featured projects in languages such as Warlpiri, Cherokee, Welsh, Quechua, Chakma, and Nishnaabe.

To bring some of these practitioners together and learn from their experiences, Rising Voices teamed up with the Indigenous Tweets project and New Tactics in Human Rights to organize a week-long online dialogue where participants could share their stories about their work, present some of the challenges they have faced, and help provide some tips for others wishing to embark in the field of language revitalization and citizen media. The entire dialogue is documented on the New Tactics website, and there are plans to collect the information and create an e-guide with the ideas, tips, and suggestions.

Conferences

Invitations to RV grantee projects are frequent occurrences at global conferences, and these events are great opportunities to share their experiences with implementing a citizen media outreach project. For example, project coordinator Jamila Venturini and participants Dener Guedes Mendonça and Soraia Rodrigues de Amorim from the Friends of Januária were invited to present at the annual Cultura Digital Forum held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. From the same project, project coordinator Amanda Rossi attended the Mozilla Festival held in London. A representative from each of the three Rising Voices projects in Egypt was invited to attend the third Arab Bloggers Meeting held in Tunisia.

Getting Connected in Bolivia

To close out the year, Rising Voices organized the first gathering of its kind in Bolivia with the support of HIVOS and IBIS. The idea of the three-day event called “Conectándonos” (Getting Connected) was to bring together emerging bloggers and creators of citizen media from underrepresented communities and those working closely with these groups, as a way to begin to build a national network of technical assistance and support. Some of these communities targeted were indigenous groups, those from rural communities, the LGBT community in Bolivia, Afro-Bolivians, and women from lower socio-economic sectors of society. Through hands-on workshops, presentations, and group activities where participants came up with a citizen media outreach project for their local community, the 35 participants from across the country met in Cochabamba, Bolivia to take part in the event. Five experienced Bolivian bloggers also took part as workshop facilitators acting as supportive mentors for the participants, and communication continues to carry on through a Facebook group.

Conectándonos poster

There was also an event open to the general public that stressed the need for a more representative Bolivian digital space with greater participation from all of these communities. Presentations and panel discussions introduced the attendees to some of these initiatives that are attempting to bridge the digital divide in citizen digital media. The three-day workshop and public event was held at the mARTadero project, a cultural arts space located in South Cochabamba. Recaps of the three days can be found on Rising Voices, and there are plans to replicate the event in Ecuador in mid-2012.

Thank you

We would like to thank the entire Rising Voices community, including our grantees that work especially hard to bring the benefits from citizen media to their local communities. We would also like to thank our volunteer authors that have taken the time to share with our readers interesting happenings from the world of citizen media. Finally, this work would not be possible without the interest expressed by our readers, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and those who support our mission of working towards a global online space much more representative with greater participation by all.

Blind Dates: The Sounds of Web Radio in Thessaloniki

Eddie Avila — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 03:51:02 +0000

By tuning into the web radio station, the latest initiative of the Rising Voices grantee project Blind Dates, one can begin to hear the excitement in the voices behind the project. The station called Blind Dates Radio can be found on the My Radio Stream platform, and provides a unique opportunity for a new generation of radio producers [el], who are members of Thessaloniki's blind community.

Blind Dates Radio logo designed by Petros Fragopoulos

In addition to being able to connect with their audience through their selection of their favorite music, they receive instant feedback from listeners via a chat widget located on the website. Using their screen-readers, the radio producers are able to receive requests and acknowledge the many messages of congratulations. There are plans to add news programming in the form of recorded audio podcasts about issues facing the blind community in Northern Greece. For example, the community recently invited the President of the Pan-Hellenic Association for the Blind to discuss how Greece's latest austerity measures are affecting services to the blind community.

Listen to Blind Dates Radio Station here.

Word is slowly spreading, and during its early broadcasts the number of listeners reached 18. The radio is online seven days a week [el] with the majority of programs live, but also there are some recorded programs to help fill up the day.

Members of the Blind Dates Radio Team

Alexia Kalaitzi, the project's coordinator, writes about why the youth chose to participate in the creation of a web radio. One of the reasons was that being able to run an entire radio station on their own, provides a great confident boost to members of the blind community. Using available technology, the radio producers are able to use the interface with very little additional assistance. In fact, the radio station has become very popular within the community and many others are already signing up wanting to join in on the fun.

Blind Dates: Goalball and Gardening

Eddie Avila — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 05:45:48 +0000

What is life like for the blind community in Thessaloniki, Greece? The new blog [el] from the Rising Voices grantee project Blind Dates has been providing a window into the daily activities of the new bloggers from the Thessaloniki School for the Blind and the Panhellenic Association. All of the new bloggers have been taking advantage of screen-reader technology to write these blog posts, with some opting to publish directly utilizing the email option on WordPress.com.

Technology for Crossing the Street

In the past, blind residents of Thessaloniki had to rely on a companion to cross the busy city streets. However, according to blogger Thanasis Chatzipantou, now blind residents have an important ally – the sounds of the traffic signals. Here he writes that there are devices mounted on the traffic lights, which produces sounds that indicate when the light is green or red [el].

Τα άτομα με προβλήματα όρασης καταλαβαίνουν πότε ο φωτεινός σηματοδότης έχει πράσινο ή κόκκινο χρώμα από τον ήχο που εκπέμπει το ηχητικό σήμα γιατί ο ήχος είναι διαφορετικός όταν έχει κόκκινο χρώμα και διαφορετικός όταν έχει πράσινο χρώμα. Αυτά τα ηχητικά σήματα έχουν τοποθετηθεί σε πολλά φανάρια της Αθήνας και της Θεσσαλονίκης άλλα και σε μερικά φανάρια άλλων πόλεων.

People with visual impairments understand when the traffic light is green or red by the sound emitted. The sound is different when it is red and different when it is green. These sound signals are installed on many traffic lights in Athens and in Thessaloniki, and a few other cities in the country. Unfortunately it is not available in all cities and islands of Greece, even though they should be because there are people with disabilities everywhere and they have the right to live like the rest of us.

Trying and Playing Goalball

In 1946, the sport of goalball was invented as a way to assist in the rehabilitation of visually impaired World War II veterans. The sport has now caught on internationally, and played by some of the Blind Dates bloggers. The sport is played by teams of three that attempt to throw a ball into the opponent's goal. The special ball contains bells, which help the players judge the location of the moving ball. Vassilis Stamoulakis blogs about his decision to play goalball, and how it ended up being harder than it sounded. It took him awhile to get the hang of the game, but with the help of the coach and hard work, he soon saw improvements. He writes [el]:

Αποτέλεσμα; Έχω αγαπήσει το goallball τρομερά και μέχρι σήμερα συνεχίζω ακόμα να παίζω και να συμμετάσχω σε αγώνες. Συμβουλέυω όσα άτομα έχουν πρόβλημα με την όραση τους, όπως εγώ, να το δοκιμάσουν. Όσοι μπορούν να το δοκιμάσουν, ας το κάνουν για να δουν απλά πώς παίζεται!

The result? I love goalball tremendously, and I still continue to play and now participate in competitions. I suggest that those with visual impairments like me should try it. Just do it and see how to play!

The Relaxing Hobby of Gardening

Some of the hobbies commonly associated with blind teenagers in northern Greece are related to the Internet, music, or other type of exercising. But one unique hobby, as practiced by blogger Stratos, involves the outdoors through gardening. He writes that it is a hobby that was introduced by his grandfather in his village of Panagiouda.

Even though some tasks such as using a motorized cutter or sprinklers require the assistance of others, Stratos is able to do most other tasks, and as a result can enjoy the tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers that he plants with his own hands. He concludes [el]:

Κλείνοντας θα παρότρυνα κάποιον αν μπορεί να ασχοληθεί με την καλλιέργεια λαχανικών διότι τα πλεονεκτήματα είναι πολλά.Το κυριότερο όμως είναι η ικανοποίηση που νιώθει κανείς όταν βλέπει πώς από ένα σπόρο αναπτύσσεται και τελικά παράγει τους καρπούς του ένα φυτό. Εγώ πάντως θα συνεχίσω να φυτεύω και να περιποιούμαι φυτά διότι μου αρέσει πολύ η όλη διαδικασία και είναι και εκτός των άλλων κάτι διαφορετικό από τις δραστηριότητες και τους τρόπους ψυχαγωγίας υπολοίπων.

I would urge anyone to work with the cultivation of vegetables because of the advantages, which the main one is the satisfaction one feels when one sees how a seed grows and eventually produces the fruit of a plant. I will continue to plant and tend to the plants because I love the entire process and being outside is something different from other hobbies and other forms of entertainment.

Blind Dates: Meet Blogger Stefanos Tokatlidis

Eddie Avila — Sun, 15 May 2011 12:40:40 +0000

The Blind Dates project in Thessaloniki, Greece continues its preparations for its first blogging and web radio workshops. The project will rely on a team of individuals and groups that will help implement the project that will work with members of the blind community throughout Northern Greece. In addition to the coordination work by Alexia Kalaitzi and Korina Braniot, the staff of the Panhellenic Association of the Blind will provide the necessary space, as well as to help coordinate the work of the volunteers.

Another key member of the project team is Stefanos Tokatlidis, who is a student at the Thessaloniki School for the Blind. His participation in the project is important because he is currently a blogger, who utilizes the screen reader software Jaws to publish directly to his WordPress blog. Not only will Stefanos help lead some of the workshops, he will be an important resource and example for other blind participants learning how to use blogging software to express their ideas.

Alexia recently interviewed Stefanos about his start with blogging and why he feels it is important to have access to technology to communicate with others. Stefanos also talks about some of the challenges facing the blind community in Thessaloniki.

As mentioned in the earlier introduction post, Stefanos’ blog is called “Το περιπλανόμενο τουατάρα [el]” (The Wandering Tuatara). The names comes from Stefanos’ fascination with science, particularly the world of reptiles. In his blog post [el], he explains how he became interested in these animals:

Ενδιαφέρον για τα ερπετά άρχισα να έχω από πολύ παλιά, λίγο πριν αρχίσω το σχολείο. Μάθαινα διάφορα γι’αυτά από τους γονείς μου κι από άλλους, από βιβλία και ντοκιμαντέρ. Αν και οι περισσότεροι στην οικογένεια δεν τα συμπαθούσαν, ο πατέρας μου δεν τα θεωρούσε τίποτα το σιχαμερό ή κακό και από εκεί ίσως πήρα το ενδιαφέρον. [...]

Στο χωριό μου, στους Πύργους Κοζάνης, άρχισα να πιάνω ερπετά κι αμφίβια ήδη από την ηλικία των 6. Το πρώτο που έπιασα ήταν ένας βάτραχος και το δεύτερο μια χελώνα ξηράς. Από τότε και για πολλά χρόνια ύστερα, έπιανα το καλοκαίρι ερπετά, τα κρατούσα για λίγες μέρες και έπειτα τ’άφηνα πάλι στο μέρος όπου τα βρήκα. [...]

Όσον αφορά τα άγρια ερπετά στο χωριό μου κι αλλού, άρχισα πριν δύο χρόνια να κάνω καταμετρήσεις από κάθε είδος που έβρισκα και πιο εντατικές παρατηρήσεις. Παρατήρησα για παράδειγμα ότι τα τελευταία χρόνια, από τα πολλά χημικά φυτοφάρμακα που ρίχνουν ασυνείδητοι στο ποταμάκι της περιοχής του χωριού μου, οι βάτραχοι σχεδόν εξαφανίστηκαν.

I became interested in reptiles many years ago, just before starting school. I learned different things about them from my parents and from others, from books, and documentaries. Although most of the family did not like them, my father did not consider them bad or detestable and maybe he was the reason I started to become interested [...]

In my village in Towers of Kozani, I started to catch reptiles and amphibians since the age of 6. The first catch was a frog and the second catch was a land turtle. Since then and for many years after, I caught reptiles in summer, keeping them for a few days, and then as I was leaving [back to the city] I left them at the place where I had found them. [...]

Regarding to the wild reptiles in my village and elsewhere, I have begun two years ago to make counts of each species I have found, while making more intensive observations. I noticed, for example, that in the last years, because of the chemical pesticides which some throw into the river of my village, the frogs have almost disappeared.

In the project blog, Alexia also writes about what happened when they were leaving the School, which demonstrates the lack of awareness by some about how their actions may affect others in the community. These situations may be precisely what the new bloggers will share with their readers.

After two hours, we are leaving the Athletic Association. Someone has parked his car in the middle of the pavement outside the Thessaloniki School for the Blind. Stefanos hits accidentally the car with his cane. He tells me:

“See! Can you understand the problems of accessibility I told you about? It’s not only State which has to care about blind people but citizens too!”

Thinking of that incident, I realize “I don’t know if our blog will manage to persuade State to care more about the blind community, but I hope that it will manage to progressively change the mentality of our society about this community. Maybe it won’t be easy but at least we will do our best to succeed it!”

Special thanks to Alexia Kalaitzi for shooting the video and help with the translation.

Introduction to the Blind Dates Project in Thessaloniki

Eddie Avila — Mon, 09 May 2011 10:10:26 +0000

In early 2011, it was announced that the Thessaloniki School for the Blind [el] was on the verge of shutting its doors because of budgetary constraints. Naturally, the School's students and their parents, as well as advocates for the blind in Northern Greece were extremely concerned of the possible effect that the possible closing would have on the students. The School provides support services to the students that attend mainstream high schools in the area, as well as it provides the opportunity for extra curricular activities such as sports and the arts.

Even though an agreement was eventually reached that would keep the School in operation, it is now under the administration of the Center for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind (CERB) in Athens. According to many of the students, the entire process demonstrated a lack of solicited input from the people that the decision would ultimately affect the most.

Braille machine at the Panhellenic Association of the Blind

Volunteers Alexia Kalaitzi and Korina Branioti, had been helping with the School's Athletic Association and were able to see how the uncertainty affected the students with whom they worked. Both had been journalism students at Aristotle University, and were already quite aware of the potential for using citizen media as a means of expression. They suggested to the students that using these tools may help add their voice to these important conversations. They approached the School with the idea of providing workshops on the use of blogs and radio podcasts to the students, which the School tentatively authorized. However, due to the administrative reorganization, the project was not given a top priority and the project was forced to look elsewhere for a host organization.

It was then that the Panhellenic Association of the Blind stepped up and showed great interest in hosting the project. As the first organization of its kind, the Association was created in 1932 in order to advocate for the rights of the blind in Northern Greece, as well as provide important support services to its members. Currently, the Association provides mobility and other daily life skills training, the services of a social worker, and employment and career advising. In addition to its extensive audio book library, the Association provides the opportunity for its members to get involved with cultural activities including a choir of Byzantine folk music. And now they will add citizen media training to the services available to its approximately 400 members from all age ranges.

In this video, project coordinator Kalaitzi talks about her hopes for the project:

In addition to the coordination work by Kalaitzi and Branioti, the “Blind Dates” project will also count on technical support for the web radio podcasts from the local NGO United Societies of Balkans, which has had experience with similar audio platforms in Thessaloniki.

Stefanos Taokatlidis

The active participation of two students from the School of the Blind will help provide additional guidance during the project, serving as mentors to the new blog and podcast workshop participants. Stefanos Taokatlidis has been a blogger since February 2010 on his WordPress hosted blog titled “Το περιπλανόμενο τουατάρα [el]” (The Wandering Tuatara) named for a reptile commonly found in New Zealand. Stefanos is a reptile enthusiast, thus explaining the blog's title and the subject of many of his posts. However, not all of Stefanos’ posts are about science, but he also writes about the school trips that he takes, such as a recent trip [el] to the Greek island of Corfu.

Another student at the Thessaloniki School for the Blind who will be very active in the implementation of the project is Giorgos Proestos, who, even though he is not a blogger himself, is especially interested in the use of radio. We will feature both Stefanos and George a little more in future posts.

One forthcoming challenge is that summer is fast approaching throughout Greece, and many students and their families choose to spend their vacations in their countryside houses. Even though there is access to the internet outside of the city, blogging may have to compete with the sun and relaxation on the Greek beaches. Nevertheless, what was originally a project focused on students at the School for the Blind has now expanded to included Thessalonian blind residents of all ages, especially those that express an interest from the open invitation that will be sent in the coming weeks.

Most likely those members of the Association that will answer the call will be those that have already been using computers and the internet. Thanks to the technology of screen readers, the blind and other visually impaired have better access to the information available online. The “Blind Dates” project will introduce them to other forms of communication through blogging and audio podcast workshops. Many who use screen readers can access the blogging platform, but others choose to publish to their blog via email.

Audio editing and broadcasting may prove to be a little more complicated than blogging, but it is one of the components of the projects that the team will explore and find solutions. Reaching out to the international community of organizations working with the blind can also be another way to receive additional guidance. There are more and more communities of blind bloggers, who are regular creators of citizen media, including Global Voices in Serbian Editor Sinisa Boljanovic.

Even though blogs and audio podcasting allow participants to express themselves about any topic that they want, such as reptiles and Greek islands, the “Blind Dates” project will encourage the participants to write about the blind community in Northern Greece. It is clear that just by the services provided by organizations like the Panhellenic Association and the School for the Blind, the blind community in Thessaloniki continues to face many challenges ranging from accessibility issues to discrimination related to employment and education, as well as public policies that are often created without input from those that will be affected the most.

The “Blind Dates” project will help provide the opportunity for the participants to speak up for themselves, and help others better understand about the daily challenges, as well as the successes, that the blind community faces in Thessaloniki.

Announcing the Newest Rising Voices Grantees

Eddie Avila — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 05:36:24 +0000

Rising Voices is pleased to announce the five newest members to join its global community of citizen media grantees. Each of the selected projects will receive microgrants to implement their proposed project to teach others how to use various citizen media tools. This latest competition round resulted in an impressive amount of interest from around the world. In all, Rising Voices received more than 750 applications from more than 90 countries, and it was a difficult decision narrowing down the selection to just five grantee projects. There were many deserving projects with great ideas that addressed specific needs in local underrepresented communities that we were unfortunately unable to fund. The five projects selected are diverse and represent four different continents, with each working in their unique context and we think will add much to our community. The five new grantees are:

Bandim and Enterramento (Guinea-Bissau)

In the Western African country of Guinea-Bissau, the organization Associação Amigos das Crianças (Association Friends of the Children) has built a strong relationship with the youth in the neighborhoods of Bandim and Enterramento located on the outskirts of the capital city Bissau. According to AMIC, the residents of these communities face challenging issues such as the lack of access to safe drinking water, a fragile sanitation system, poor educational infrastructure, and few safe places for children to play.

However, in these neighborhoods there is a also strong spirit of creativity and artistic expression thanks to the work of AMIC, in collaboration with the local cultural group “Cultural Netos de Bandim.” Together they have been providing alternative cultural activities such as art, dance, and theater workshops as a way to engage the local youth living in these two neighborhoods. Under the leadership of Ector Diogenes Cassamá, a local artist and activist, AMIC will begin to add digital storytelling to the cultural offerings available to the neighborhood youth.

The project seeks to teach the youth of these two neighborhoods how to use digital photography and video to document life in their surrounding community. Even though the two neighborhoods of Bandim and Enterramento are not adjacent to one another, the project will allow youth from the different neighborhoods to interact with and learn about youth in another part of Bissau. Through community exploration and interviews of fellow residents, the youth will gain a better understanding of the history of the neighborhood. The youth will also learn about the current challenges facing their surroundings, and how they can play a role in shaping their future.

Friends of Januária (Brazil)

The small town of Januária located in the north of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais has had a recent history of difficulties with its local government. In the span of six years, the town has gone through seven mayors. Several of these mayors were removed because of wrongdoing [pt], including many cases of mismanagement of public funds. Because this small town with a population of 65,000 is located far from many of the urban centers in Brazil, the local government receives little or no press coverage, which is often a way to hold local public servants accountable to their constituents

Since 2004, a local organization called the Association of Friends of Januária (Asajan) has been raising awareness about the issue of local governance among the town's residents. Through investigative journalism work and public awareness campaigns, Asajan has been championing transparency and accountability for Januária's local government. Much of this work has been made possible by one of Asajan's founders, Fábio Oliva, who is an active blogger himself and who has been writing about issues of civic engagement. In 2008, Brazilian multimedia journalists Amanda Rossi and Jamila Venturini filmed a documentary [pt] about the work of Asajan and about the ongoing needs of the local community, with a focus on Asajan's work holding public officials accountable.

Asajan now seeks to include more local participation in its work of monitoring the municipal government and its budgets, as well as learning about ways to access public information regarding their town. The project will be led by Rossi and Venturini, in close collaboration with Oliva, Asajan, and others, which will engage residents of the town, especially focusing on youth, teaching them how to use citizen media tools for greater civic participation. The participants will use blogs, digital video and photography, as a way to document the issues facing the town and to monitor the local government's response to these needs.

Transparent Chennai (India)

Transparent Chennai is a local organization that has been aggregating, collecting, and displaying data for public interest use about the Indian city of Chennai. Access to this information helps residents better understand the needs of the city, as well as the local government's response to these needs. Much of the data is available via interactive maps containing various layers of social, political, jurisdictional, and environmental information about the city. Staff and volunteers of Transparent Chennai have done much of the previous data collection, even though there exists an open invitation for the general public to submit their own information to the database of knowledge.

For this pilot project, Transparent Chennai will add new elements to their existing work by focusing on directly engaging two local artisanal fishing kuppams (villages) in South Chennai. The residents of Usur and Olcott will take part in hands-on workshops where they will learn how to contribute to the map, marking the boundaries of their village, land use patterns – especially how different livelihoods in the community use space outside of their homes and along the water, identifying local resources, points of historical and ritual importance, and gaps in local infrastructure and in government services. The youth of the villages will also take an active part through the use of digital cameras to photograph life within the kuppam, and to post these photographs as a way to create another layer of geotagged images to the map.

This project will engage these villages that have been engulfed by the expanding borders of the city of Chennai. Despite laws in place to protect the coastline from rampant development and to preserve the rights of traditional fishing communities to their land, both Urur and Olcott kuppam are currently threatened with eviction to make way for an elevated expressway the government is planning to build along the city’s coast. The project leaders have discussed the proposed project with the fishermen's panchayats or local governing councils, and together they feel that it is particularly important to bring other voices and other notions of the city into the local and global conversation, so that these voices too can be valued and preserved as an essential part of modern Chennai.

Blind Dates (Greece)

The local school for the blind in Thessaloniki, Greece has recently faced uncertainty with the threatened closing of their school due to operational budgetary constraints. Even though an agreement was eventually reached with national officials ensuring the school's continued operation, many students at the school felt frustrated that their voices were not being heard during the debate that would directly affect their lives. Several of the school's volunteers approached the students about the possibility of using citizen media as a way to express their thoughts on the state of their school, as well as other issues facing the blind community in northern Greece.

As technology for the blind computer users continues to progress, it has become easier and easier for the visually disabled to these citizen media tools. For example, through the use of screen readers, which is software that provides text-to-speech capabilities allowing the user to hear the words aloud that are written or typed by the user, this has enabled many individuals to send emails, to surf the web, as well as as to publish to their personal blogs. Voice recording for audio podcasting is also another way that the blind can express their thoughts and ideas online.

The project “Blind Dates” will be led by Alexia Kalaitzi, who is a volunteer at the school, in close collaboration with Stefanos Tokatlidis, a current student at the school. Tokatlidis has been a blogger [el] for a little more than a year, and is eager to teach his fellow students how to create and manage their own blogs using some of the technologies available for blind students. In addition to teaching the students how to blog, the project will receive technical support from the local NGO United Societies of Balkans to broadcast the audio podcasts on an online web radio station. The content created by the students will cover a wide range of subjects including news about the school, as well as issues pertaining to accessibility issues and public policies concerning the blind community in northern Greece.

Ségou Villages Connection (Mali)

Many rural Malian communities are separated by great distances from the urban centers, including the capital city of Bamako. In many instances, the poor infrastructure, poor roads, and limited electricity, can make the distances seem much larger. However, the emergence of communication tools such as affordable mobile phones can help strengthen the links between the residents of rural villages and the larger cities. This is especially important for many Malians who have left their communities for greater educational and economic opportunities in Bamako.

One prolific Malian blogger, Boukary Konaté, is originally from the Ségou region in Mali, which is located along the Niger River. Even though he lives and works in Bamako, he still holds strong binding ties to his community back home. He has been an innovative local leader in the use of citizen media tools as a way to keep residents in the Ségou region informed about news taking place in the capital and around the world. For example, he provided live Twitter updates with scores and news of the 2010 World Cup football matches taking place in South Africa. These microblogging messages written in French and the native language of Bambara provided valuable updates to the football fans in Ségou without television sets.

Konaté's project seeks to continue this communication flow with the residents of the Ségou villages, but the project will add a teaching component where villagers will learn how to send their own news and information back to Bamako. Through hands-on workshops that will take place in various villages, Konaté will train the residents how to use their mobile phones to send news about the communities to the residents living in the capital. They will also receive feedback and comments from the readers, with all of the information to be collected on a community portal made available in French and Bambara. This two-way communication will strengthen the relationship between residents in the villages and those now living in the capital city.

Please join us in congratulating and welcoming the five newest Rising Voices grantees. We're excited to see their work unfold and we hope you are too!