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Rising Voices: 2010 In Review

Rezwan — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 19:57:27 +0000

2010 was an eventful year for Rising Voices and its community. Théophile Kouamouo, one of Francophone Africa's leading bloggers and the project leader of the Rising Voices grantee Abidjan Blog Camps, had been arrested for publishing a newspaper report and was released after spending two weeks in prison. HiperBarrio from Colombia won the First Community Journalism Award given by Antioquia University in the category of Best Community Web platform.

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:

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.

FOKO: Referendum On Constitution And A Failed Coup

Rezwan — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 20:27:52 +0000

Madagascar is going through a turbulent time. After 20 months of regime change the return to constitutional order was anticipated. A heavily disputed referendum on the new constitutional proposal was held on the 17th of November. The election process was marred by irregularities and finally it was overshadowed by a failed coup attempt.

Some bloggers of the Rising Voices grantee FOKO of Madagascar continued to share the news as it happened along with their opinions.

Referndum in Progress. Image courtesy Jentilisa

Andry posts about the riots in Antananarivo prior to the referendum which was boycotted by the opposition parties:

Clashes between security forces and members of the three main opposition movements (Ravalomanana – Ratsiraka – Zafy) increased yesterday.

Few days ago, the three movements filed an official request before the municipality of Antananarivo and police prefecture to use the MALACAM stadium located in Antanimena. [..]

The prime minister, General Camille Vital, after a meeting with the high officers within the Joint Body of Conception, decided (after municipality’s decision) to ban all the political public events.

A Mazda van which was transporting Indo-Pakistanese children, was vandalized and set on fire. Image courtesy Dadandry

The protesters vandalized cars and attacked shops of foreigners.

“I will never accept and be part of these wild and intellectually poor scenes of looting and public destruction,” reminded Andry.

Ariniaina conducted an online survey and she shared the results:

The first question was: Are you going to vote?

25.8% said YES; 64.5% said NO and 9.7% said they did not know yet at the moment of the survey.

Harinjaka notes that almost 80% of Madagascar citizens have skipped their civic duty and wonders:

“If the result of that vote participation is less than 50 percent, will the international community accept and recognize Madagascar as Democratic country?”

Rising Voices Submissions for One Day on Earth

Eddie Avila — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 19:11:11 +0000

A pair of bloggers from Rising Voices projects recently took part in the One Day on Earth project. The project's goal is to collect submissions in the form of videos and images from around the world to provide a broad look at life on earth on one day, October 10, 2010. Here are the submissions along with background information from two bloggers from the Rising Voices projects Foko and Exploring Taboos.

FOKO

In the city of Antananarivo, Lalatiana Rahariniaina shot video of markets and public transportation on the Sunday morning. Her video was accompanied by the music of her friend Olombelo Ricky, who gave her permission to use his song.

On her blog DagoTiako, she explains a little bit about her experiences filming for the project.

It was a Sunday morning; most of the shops and offices were closed. And I did not want to go to church with my jeans and sneakers. There was a little moment of thinking and… “Bingo!”, there are always markets even on Sunday. My husband did not want me to go there. You could guess it, this would not be safe for me and my camera. But stubborn as I am, I went down the streets and headed to the markets anyway. My poor husband did not let me alone of course, he finally decided to be my “guard” (My husband is lovely, isn’t he? ). Anyway, I could make the video, only a few people I met in the streets were reluctant with the project, but I sincerely appreciated the sellers in Behoririka market, the bus driver, its conductor and all the passengers who nicely agreed to be part of my film.

Exploring Taboos

The second submission comes from Nawara Belal in the city of Cairo, Egypt. She and her friends narrated images that were shot on October 10, 2010. The topic of the video is about the rights of females in Egypt, and it complements many of the subjects she writes about in her blog Nooning [ar/en] as part of the Exploring Taboos project. She explains that each of the three women hold their own opinions on their personal freedom and right to self-expression in the country. She writes:

The first girl is a single woman living in a separate department in the same building have very high hopes even if her words seem simple, she is a simply complicated woman.

The second girl is a married woman living with her 2 young boys in a separate appartment in the same building, she has always wished for more than has presented to her and she works hard to earn that.

The third girl, is the elder sister married and living with her children and husband in also a separate appartment in the same building. you can call her old fashioned but I see in her, a deeply real woman at heart.

Submissions like these are only two of many from the around the world, and some of which will be used in the documentary film to be put together by project organizers. A trailer has already been released showing samples of some of the images submitted around the world.

One Day on Earth - 1st week teaser from One Day On Earth on Vimeo.

FOKO: Traditional Malagasy Fence

Rezwan — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 19:41:52 +0000

The bloggers of the rising Voices grantee in Madagascar FOKO love to write on issues surrounding them. Ariniaina at Dago Tiako describes about “Tamboho gasy” – the traditional Malagasy fence:

Tamboho gasy. Image courtesy Ariniaina

If you go out of Antananarivo, you may notice “empty” pieces of land (no construction, no farming) surrounded by brown walls. These walls are the “tamboho gasy”. The new generation people, Malagasy and foreigners, are always amazed seeing these walls knowing that they were made more than a hundred years ago.

Like any other kids, in my childhood, I used to ask a lot of questions on how, why… things were made. I remember, one day, I was in the garden with my father and my eyes were attracted by one side of our fence which was different from the other walls. Then, I started to ask questions. My father explained that it was a “tambohon’ny Ntaolo” (Malagasy Ancestors’ fence) and it was made with soil, water and cow dung.

Andry at the Cyber observer writes on the corruption of his country:

Transparency international revealed on its report that since the beginning of the transition, the situation of the corruption in Madagascar has worsened. According to such report, Madagascar is now at the 13rd rank on a list of 178 countries.

All public sectors of the state administration are “infected”.

Tahina promotes an e-petition supported by the WWF to stop illegal logging in Madagascar.

Rising Voices Bloggers On Blog Action Day 2010

Rezwan — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 03:54:37 +0000

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. The aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion around an important issue that impacts us all. This year's theme is ‘water'.

Some participants/facilitators of the Rising Voices grantee organizations have also participated in this event. Let us look at some of their efforts.

Juliana Rincon from Hiperbarrio, Colombia writes [es] about spending too much water on washing clothes and bathing because of daily workouts at a Gym:

Obviously spending a LOT of water. Because even when filling the tank to a minimum I have to look for more clothes to wash, just because there are 3 rags floating in the water. So today I put my hand on the heart and the other in my pocket and went to buy more clothes for workouts. [..]

Moreover, multiple showers in the day also are pushing up and raising the water meter. So I've decided to give up my habits and [..] I bathe once a day, after exercise. [..]

Because if it is so easy to save water, there can be nothing more I need. (machine translation)

Water Scarcity in the Southern Parts Of Madagascar. Image courtesy Ariniania

Ariniaina from Foko Madagascar writes about an innovative method to purify water:

I heard that in the Southern part of Madagascar, people really suffer from lack of water. This zone is dry. People have to walk for kilometers to find water which is not even clean. Some people had even the idea to market clean water at a very high price.

One of my friend shared a simple method to disinfect water during our English Club meeting. I believe it can be a good idea to share it here today. The method is called SODIS (Solar water disinfection).

Avylavitra from Foko Madagascar talks about protecting water resources and the importance of distribution of safe drinking water:

Water is very, very expensive. Plus, the South part of Madagascar is suffering of lack of water. They must buy water far away of their house, and then bring it back home on a cart pulled by donkeys.

Therefore, moderate use of water is needed, we shouldn’t waste water, and should keep it drinking.

* The “Re-use of wastewater to water the rice fields, after filtering it successively with charcoal and sand “.

* There is no latrine, or better toilets. In the case of Southern area of Madagascar, they suffer of the lack of water. They need to buy water brought to them by car, or cart pulled by donkeys because there is no local water source. There’s mostly desert.

What attitude to adopt to avoid this kind of pollution? Image courtesy Avylavitra

Cristina Quisbert from Voces Volivianas, Bolivia writes:

“There will be no water from 13:00 am to 20:00 …” read the statement the local water company in La Paz in March 2008. The reason was that maintenance should be done after the pipeline of the Hampaturi Plant borke, which provides drinking water to the south, east and south east of La Paz.

I remember that for three weeks, 25 districts of the (La Paz) city had no regular water supply. Several high water tanks were located in these areas. However, receiving water in this way involved an additional problem for these families, carrying water in buckets, cans, etc.. [..]

This difficulty still persists and several families still are unable to have drinking water at home, not only in La Paz, but also in other cities in Bolivia. This is because the sources of water formed by melting of the mountains as in the case of Hampaturi are disappearing, and at any time they will be unable to supply the growing population of El Alto and La Paz. (machine translation)

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

Rising Voices And World Cup

Rezwan — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:29:22 +0000

“Soccer is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated. It satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening–it is without doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented” - Unknown

People say that the World Cup soccer (football) is a truly International event. The bloggers of many Rising Voices projects across continents have written about it to show their passion.

Ariniaina from Madagascar writes in her blog Dago Tiako how Malagasy kids are inspired by the World Cup:

Last saturday, while waiting for the ICE Club meeting, in the playground of EPP (Public Primary School) Analakely, I was attracted by children’s shouts of joy. They were 5 guys and 1 girl playing football. Their ball was special. They made it by themselves. They winded a rope round some used plastic bags and pieces of rag and that’s it. They seemed to have their own rules but repeated from time to time , I guess, words they could hear on radio or TV ‘corner’ and ‘penalty’. They were so cute:

Lova Rakotomalala writes how Africans are coping with Ghana's loss against Uruguay ending all hopes for an African nation from reaching the world cup finals.

Despair city, a whole continent gasping in disbelief.

Pablo Flores from Uruguay uploaded some stunning pictures of the world cup football craze in Uruguay as fans gathered to watch the Ghana Uruguay game in big screens:

Jonathan Alvarez from Blogging Since Infancy project is delighted:

Uruguay among the top four in the world!

From Bolivia Hugo Miranda comments on the loss of Brazil in the hands of Netherlands:

This is football

Brazil played beautifully the first 12 minutes, with a touch of ball, with turns, to the attack. Robinho was disallowed a goal which was a warning that the goal came at 10 minutes, Robinho made him an excellent filtering before Felipe Melo.

Then started another game, many faults, very nervous, Brazil lets it go, many complaints, though it made some good moves, but not topped.

The second half we saw another Netherlands: Robben, Van Persie, Sneijder, finally and played a large stand, Robben failures, win, rush and Brazil fell in the game ..

Netherlands 0-1 Brazil

Simão | MySpace Video

Read the Global Voices special coverage to learn about the impact of World Cup 2010 across the world.

Featured Blogger: Tahina Rakotomanarivo

Rezwan — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:54:52 +0000

Tahina Rakotomanarivo blogs from Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar. In 2008 he attended a citizen media workshop organized by FOKO, the Rising Voices grantee in Madagascar, with his English language club mates and his life changed.

Image courtesy: Annie Rasoa

He started his own blog ‘Madagascar not the Movie‘, because he wanted to break the stereotypes set by the news media as Madagascar is often associated with a Disney cartoon movie about animals escaped from a New York zoo when searched in Internet. He soon made it to the news for his exemplary efforts to highlight the political turmoil in his country. AllAfrica.com reported in March, 20009:

Tahina is one of Madagascar's most active bloggers and twitterers, part of a young generation of internet savvy Malagasies who have turned to cyberspace to share news and opinions on political events in the country.

Tahina also worked behind setting up and running of the Ushahidi, the award winning citizen media platform to report on the political crisis.

We have caught up with Tahina in an email interview to learn more about him. Here are the questions and answers:

RV: You joined ICE Club to learn English - why? Is English used in Madagascar in daily life?

Tahina: I'm among the founders of the ICE Club with close friends who like me are founders of this English language club. English is not really used our daily life, Malagasy people are getting more and more interested in learning it though. I guess they know it can offer them more opportunities.

RV: When did you hear about FOKO? How did you join the FOKO workshop?

Tahina: Joan Razafimaraho got in touch with us (ICE Club) through our blog and she introduced us to FOKO. It was in June 2008 if I remember well. She said FOKO would hold workshop on blogging and citizen media in the months to come and invited us to join it. As I found it interesting I decided to go there.

RV: What was the first impression of the workshops and blogging in general?

Tahina: Pretty positive in general. We were told about the story of Baby Kamba and the role of Diana (and other bloggers and entities I guess) in it. The world of blogging is very wide and you are a bit lost at the beginning but when you start to discover what people blog about and what they are sharing you realize it's a very fascinating world.

RV: Tell me about your blog. Why did you choose the title Madagascar not The Movie?

Tahina: My blog talks about Madagascar, the Island. After the FOKO workshop, I was looking for something that I could blog about and I didn't look far, why not blog my country and its people. I think I won't be the only one who will say that our country is hidden by the movie of the same name on the Internet. So the title is just to counter this.

RV: What difference does it make blogging in English in Madagascar?

Tahina: Mainly, the readership. According to my stats, most of my readers come from Anglophone countries.

Image courtesy: Kya Rafun

RV: How blogging has changed your life, especially after the political crisis in your country?

Tahina: It has brought me experiences online and on site that surely will stay for long in my mind.

RV: Do you find it is important for a blogger to have an international outlook so that conversations between people of different countries can happen??

Tahina: It depends on who you are targeting in your blog. Conversation between people of different countries can happen when you are taking about something that matters to them, something that gets their interests.

RV: You are also active on Twitter. What are the advantages of using micro-blogging services?

Tahina: It quickly spreads and you only write the essential. To sum up, it doesn't take much time.

RV: You are also a good photographer and have a Flickr account. Tell us about your thoughts on photoblogging.

Tahina: During a photography workshop with Tibora Bea organized by FOKO I explained why I liked taking photos. They are more meaningful sometimes and writing is just not my favorite exercise. Ariniaina and I share the same point of view on this.

RV: What are the challenges you face while blogging?

Tahina: The main challenge is the Internet connection. Costly and has bad quality. It's a real pain for example to upload photos and videos. Sometimes, loading the administration panel of wordpress can take you several minutes.

RV: As a prolific blogger as we have seen in past - you have slowed down recently. Any particular reason?

Tahina: It's for professional reason. I have to focus more on my job.

RV: What is your future plan regarding the use of citizen media?

Tahina: I will keep it up, it's just a matter of time but may be I will go more towards photoblogging.

FOKO: Can ICT Bring A Solution To Overcome Despair?

Rezwan — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:50:02 +0000

The recent arrival of the optical fiber submarine cable (EASSY) in Madagascar unfurls lots of opportunities for the promotion of ICT. It will enable data transfer at speeds 40 times faster than dial-up connections currently available in the country. A series of ICT for development workshops have taken place in the capital Antananarivo to explore the potentials. Stéphane Ramananarivo, a member of the Rising Voices grantee FOKO, participated at the T4D-M4D Forum and shares [fr] this in his blog:

Various topics have been mentioned by the leaders of each entity: women, children, youth, health, nutrition, insecurity … you could see the problems deteriorate because of the inaccessibility to information. For example a “tambanivohitra” is forced to walk for miles to share a new broadcast center for basic health or CBS. That's why we should popularize ICTs to those who have a minimum knowledge in the most isolated localities in order to reduce the gap of news in real time.

On analysis we found that the use of new technology is very beneficial for the Malagasy, which is why we must find people of good will to implement it. (machine translation)

Here is a video of Stéphane's speech [fr] in the group detailing the success of FOKO Blog Club activities discussed at the T4D-M4D Forum:

Andrydago informs that “Silo Rice Mill”, which is mainly involved in rice operations throughout Madagascar, is being sabotaged and will be forced to close down. The consequences of shutting down of employers like this means tough time for the country. Moonlightgirl shares a reality in Madagascar:

Since the political crisis 2009- 2010 occurred in Madagascar, a lot of Malagasy people became very poor. Many had lost their jobs, and their families couldn’t even afford to pay the rent anymore. Their landlords kicked them out their homes. Their children had to stop going to school. Most of them ended up building little houses made from sacks or if they were lucky enough to find a little tent to squeeze their family into.

She asks these questions:

If this Crisis continue another year what will become of the Nation, and especially us Malagasy people? A lot will die of cold and starvation. Some would lose hope and commit suicide or even become crazy.

When certain politicians and people thought that they wanted to make Madagascar a better country? Did they? Few people do live well but the majority is living in Hell on earth.

Andrydago at The Cyber Observer informs in his blog about a turmoil within the Malagasy army which does not promise much to prevent the ongoing crisis. HAT minister of defense, General Noel RAKOTONANDRASANA was sacked because of rumors that he is conspiring to stage a military coup:

“Tapina ny dômy …” (free translation: the game is over) a friend said when he heard about the news of the sacking of the HAT minister of defense, General Noel RAKOTONANDRASANA, on Wednesday April 07th, evening. It was a real surprise for everybody, the General Noel RAKOTONANDRASANA was among the military officers who brought Andry Rajoelina on power.

Malagasy new year celebrations - image by Ariniaina

Ariniaina at Dago Tiako wishes her readers a happy Malagasy new year. She went to Andohalo on the 16th of March to learn how Malagasy people celebrate the New year’s eve ‘traditionally'. She writes:

The ceremony started at 8 p.m. with a short ‘kabary’ (speech). Then, the organizers lit the fire which is called ‘Afo tsy maty’ cuz the fire won’t go out till the morning. A guy lit a candle from the fire and shared it to one of the young guys who were lined up in a big ‘fanorona’ (Malagasy chess). Turn by turn they went and lit the candles on the fanorona. When all the candles were lit, all these young people went and lit the candles of the ‘arendrina’ (lanterns) that the public had brought. This “fire sharing’ is called ‘mizara hafanana’ (sharing heat) or “mizara hazavana’ (sharing light). (I wish I brought my lantern)

‘Angano’ (tales) and games were prepared for all these kids as well. Mmmh the tale of ‘I Faramalemy sy i Kotobekibo’ made me remember my childhood. Then, it was time for everyone kids and adults to dance and to clap during the different shows of ‘Hira gasy’, ‘Vakodrazana’ (typicall Malagasy song and rythm). It had rained but none cared. They kept on appreciating the ceremony. Yet some of the organizers managed to keep the fire on

Fire Sharing Rituals At New Years Festival. Image by Ariniaina

Moonlightgirl shares two personal experiences about personal hygiene and etiquette. She concludes:

It’s not the kind of clothes and living standards that we have that shows what type of person we are. Judging a person by their physical appearance isn’t always a good idea.

Tolotra Ratsimandresy in a new blogger from FOKO Fianarantsoa. He is also the President of Youth environmentalist association, Vintsy and member of Young conservationists club. A few days after Cyclone Hubert hit Fianarantsoa, Tolotra shares his views on environment and conservation of rain forest in Madagascar in a podcast [fr]:

Podcast With Tolotra (in French language)

FOKO: The Power Of Storytelling

Rezwan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:07:05 +0000

Security Forces in Analakely during the 2009 Malagasy Protests (by Avylavitra)

Lova Rakotomalala of the Rising Voices grantee FOKO writes that Internet is becoming a threat to the authoritarian regime in Madagascar:

It is interesting that indeed, authoritarian regimes have become increasingly suspicious of online networks. Even in countries where internet penetration is minimal like Madagascar (1% of the population had access to internet in 2008), the current government born from a coup in March 2009 still went through the trouble of shutting down one of the largest online platform of the country, topmada.com, with physical threats to the owner of the website. The most agreed upon theory is that in developing countries largely dependent on international trade and aid, such documented examples of offenses against human rights often result in economic sanction that in turn could lead to the downfall of the regime, if it is already standing on fragile political ground.

The regime fears a growing number of internet activists and the citizen journalists of FOKO are at the front stage. They are recording their daily lives and opinions on current affairs with their blog posts or Twitter messages.

FOKO Madagascar Logic Model, by Lova Rakotomalala. (Click on the image to enlarge)

Lova Rakotomalala also evaluates the power of storytelling of FOKO, being a digital outreach project. Here are some excerpts:

Most of the important achievements of the Foko project can be traced directly to their individual members first and second to Joan and Stephane who have carried the lion share of the workload.

Evidently, the context of the Foko project changed drastically because of the ongoing political turmoil. What started has a project to illustrate the day-to-day lives of Malagasy people and a platform to exchange ideas, became an critical outlet to receive news pertaining to the crisis.

Even though I do not have the exact numbers, it is pretty clear that the Malagasy crisis provoke a surge in the creation of political blogs. There was also the opposite effect, the ones who stopped blogging in view of more urgent matters to attend to or because it became dangerous to speak out. [..] Now that the media in the rest of the world has essentially forgotten about the persisting crisis in Madagascar, it will also be intriguing to see how the dynamic of the blogoshpere will evolve in a more introspective context.

At the height of the crisis, bloggers like everyone else, were concerned with transmitting what they saw, heard or felt as quickly as possible. A photo was worth a thousand words, literally. Then the dust settled. The frenzy made ways to a less urgent but still probably more sobering, grinding crisis, one that probably will have more lasting effects than the turmoil at the height of the violence. Still bloggers in general and from Foko in particular have remained. A few quit but new ones also arrived.

He shares some stories of Malagasy people told by Malagasy blogger and states that they are clearly re-told by the bloggers who live near or witness them. This is the power of story telling which can make an impact in the society.

Joan Razafimaharo started a meme titled “Madagascar … 50 years later” in which several generations of Malagasy netizens shares their opinions on Madagascar through hopes of the past, today's reality and the wishes for tomorrow. Here is a list of entries she compiled in her blog “Purple Corner”.

Now let us look at some of the stories published by the FOKO bloggers.

Tahina is concerned about the drying up of Ikopa river because of the drought and less rain.

Fighting invasion of mouse at university campus. Image by Patrick

Patrick writes about an effort of the Vintsy Fandrana Club of the University of Tamatave. They launched a campaign to control mice/rats in the campus, which were bothering students at night.

Tontonkely, a new blogger from Antsirabe Vakinankaratra region informs about the unwanted children of a tribe in Antambahoaka:

The people of the tribe in Madagascar Antambahoaka refuse to raise their children if they are twins. For them, raising twins or binoculars is strictly taboo.

This phenomenon has already existed since the sixteenth century and it continues until now.

This results in the killing of some children or abandoning them only to be saved by some good people. The blogger says that the government is not doing anything about it.

Luc Andriambahoaka introduces to us an innovative project of promoting cycle Rickshaws and how they are improving the lives of people in Antsirabe:

Due to a situation of chronic poverty in rural areas around Antsirabe, the Region has witnessed a very strong rural exodus. The workers migrate to the city in hopes of finding employment and better income.

The city itself is full of young people whose future is clouded by the low employment opportunity, a lack of employability and living conditions very difficult.

The work of rickshaw pullers becomes an “easy” way to survive and support his family.

Voatandroka insect. Image courtesy Imahaka

Imahaka, a student of the ESSVA school in Antsirabe, has the curiosity to discover the nature and writes about Voatandroka, a rare beetle like insect.

Ariniaina highlights those people who live by picking trash.

Stéphane Ramananarivo continues to conduct citizen media workshops to newer communities of Madagsacar.

Preparations for a microblogging workshop. Image courtesy Stéphane Ramananarivo

Joan Razafimaharo writes in the project blog:

Last Friday, another workshop took place at APC this time to learn about Social Media which is little known by journalists. Two young bloggers helped Stéphane introduce social networks such as Twitter and Facebook but also WordPress. This was the third workshop of a serie which started back in April 2009. [..]

He is currently training SAVA and DIANA regions bloggers who showed interest in Foko and its successful Blog Club outreach.

Stéphane posts some photos of the microblogging workshop in his blog.

Image courtesy Stéphane Ramananarivo

Get the updates from the FOKO bloggers from here. Here is a list of more new blogs, which were opened by the recent blogging workshop in Fianaransoa.

Foko Bloggers Shine In The Best Of Malagasy Blogs Contest

Rezwan — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 19:43:31 +0000

Last December we reported about the announcement of the The Best Of Malagasy Blogs (BOMBS) contest. On December 31st the nomination closed and on the 3rd of January, 2010 the jury started selecting the best blogs in 5 categories from the nominated blogs. The votes were also opened for the sixth category of blog - the public choice.

On February 1st, 2010 the BOMBS 2009 awards were announced. We have the pleasure to inform you that several bloggers from Foko, the Rising Voices grantee in Madagascar, won the awards.

The best blogs on Madagascar’s Cultural identity (Kalo-gasy) went to Moonlightgirl. She had started blogging in September 2008 with her friends at ICE club. She is writing her first novel and she publishes some snippets on her blog. She was asked the following questions:

Describe your blog in 3 words:
* My Blog is Interesting, real and extraordinary

By surfing on your blog, readers discover the writer in Moon, where did you get your passion about writing?

* Since I was a child , my writing was inspired from the great books I’ve read and from the society we live in

Can you tell us a little bit about the topic of your next post?

* The topic of my next post will be a story about the life of an abused child.

Here is another interview published in the Foko Blog Club blog earlier.

Gazety Avylavitra won two awards - one for the best blog written in Malagasy language (Teny Gasy) and one for the best blog on everyday life in Madagascar (vita gasy). He shares his reactions here [mg]. We remember his work to save the baby Kamba.

Ariniaina and Tahina congratulates the winners of the BOMBS.

On another news Jaona, the coordinator for Fianarantsoa workshops has good news:

We were supposed to start our workshops by the end of last year but we weren’t able to meet, and postponed it for January 22nd. We trained 10 new bloggers not only by familiarizing them to internet but also teached them to open an email account which was the first time for some of them.

In this post Joan Razafimaharo highlights some of the bloggers from the Fianarantsoa team.