Today's post is dedicated to the Blog Action Day 2008. This year's theme of the day is poverty.

Poverty is deprivation of common necessities that determine the quality of life, including food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, and may also include the deprivation of opportunities to learn, to obtain better employment to escape poverty, and/or to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens (Source)

Latest World Bank figures estimate that one billion people across the world do not get the minimum nutritional level needed to sustain themselves. To do something about it we need to engage all our resources and use whatever means we can employ to make a change.

Why are we talking about citizen media when people do not have security of food and how does citizen media sneak in to address poverty?

While the news of poverty is missing from the agenda of the mainstream media the citizen media initiatives like blogs take the lead. The Blog Action Day message is:

Today thousands of bloggers will unite to discuss a single issue - poverty. We aim to raise awareness, initiate action and to shake the web!

Citizen media requires some basic technological infrastructure like PCs, internet, electricity etc. Technology is not all about expensive gadgets and showing off but breaking through many barriers like digital divide. When in 1997 Grameen Bank started giving loan to poor women in the remote Bangladeshi villages to start commercial mobile services, people laughed. Cell phones were expensive then but their competitive advantage was the absence of land lines and many women got out of poverty. Today people can access to internet via mobile phones in the rural areas where even there is no electricity.

Image: Vilage Telephone Lady, by Jeevs Sinclair. Used under a CC license

If we look at the various Rising Voices Grantees (most of them represent marginal communities) we will see that they are using different citizen media tools such as blogs, videos, images, podcasts etc. to tell about themselves and raise awareness about poverty. They are blogging for different social causes in their communities which are normally ignored.

People may raise their eyebrows hearing to the Uruguayan government's commitment to hand over Hundred Dollar laptops (OLPCs) to every child in that country. But when the Rising Voices grantee “Blogging since infancy” will train these kids to use citizen media tools like blogging and they will share their everyday lives, we may even see something out of the ordinary. That is how technology and commitments can make a difference.

One of the aims of Rising Voices is to promote voices from underrepresented and neglected communities to the global conversation. Those people who are struggling to secure their basic needs and safety need citizen media to voice their plights, concerns. The traditional society do not give them much space. One of the challenges faced by the young citizen journalists from the Neighborhood Diaries project in Kolkata, India is that they felt very shy to enter in a cyber cafe in their community. Because they come from a red light area slum, some people think that they are untouchables. But they vowed to challenge the digital divide to let their story be heard by the world.

Image by bengal*foam : Used under a creative commons license

Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman told in an interview with Africa News:

“I think citizen media will be critical in helping non-Africans connect more closely to African stories. I think that bloggers and other citizen authors offer readers the opinion to connect with an author as well as with a story, and that this may build human connections to stories that otherwise might be ignored or missed.”

So why should you care about poverty or help the people who are fighting poverty? Shawn at Uncultured.com says:

Because our long term well being - not our well-being for the next semester or the next financial quarter - depends on how we care for the least off among us. Now, more than ever, we need to realize, understand, and embrace the notion that making the world a better place for others makes it a better place for us all.

How can you help to eradicate poverty or make a change? You can play a role in the citizen media outreach by helping the people who are doing this important task. David Sasaki informs of some examples:

Nari Jibon center in Dhaka, which incorporates citizen media into existing English, computer, and Bangla classes for young Bangladeshi women. Much of the amazing content produced by Nari Jibon bloggers is thanks to the training they have received at workshops put on by an unlikely yet highly proficient group of veteran bloggers from Venezuela, Canada, and the United States.

Here are more innovative ways to help the Rising Voices grantees:

• Buy latop sleeves and contribute to Voces Bolivianas Project.
• Buy Etsy Bags and help the FOKO Bloggers in Madagascar.
• Nari Jibon provides Bangladeshi women with skills rather than money in order to provide more opportunities. As little as $17 covers an entire Microsoft Office training program including four cyber-cafe passes.
• Kalam, the organization behind the Neighbourhood Diaries project in Kolkata, India has released a PDF version of their annual Open Box of Poetry which is available for a suggested donation of US$5. All proceeds will go toward continuing Kalam’s outreach work in Kolkata.

These are only some examples. If you are interested you can learn about more of these projects.

Today is another important day. Its Global Handwashing Day and learn more about it here.

Many of these projects have become so successful that they are now attracting the interest of more local community members who want to learn how to communicate effectively online. In order to continue their training workshops and outreach activities, they have had to come up with creative strategies for financial sustainability.

Fashionable MacBook Sleeves Promote Bolivian Digital Inclusion

One of the first fundraising activities came from Voces Bolivianas, a citizen media outreach initiative in Bolivia which has successfully trained dozens of new bloggers across the country, most recently at the Bloguivianos conference in El Alto and La Paz. In July, with the help of two members based in El Alto, Voces Bolivianas produced a number of laptop sleeves from traditional aguayo textile and sold the sleeves for $25 each on their website using PayPal. 100% of the proceeds went toward Voces Bolivianas activities. They have sold out of the sleeves, but if you are interested in purchasing one in the future, you can leave a comment on their blog post and specify your desired dimensions using Survey Monkey.

HiperBarrio Receives Local Government Support

The municipal government of Medellín, Colombia has recently received much attention and applause for reversing its violent history and reputation and becoming a Latin American model of urban inclusion and creativity. In addition to its ambitious network of ‘library parks' and its metro system with gondola-like carriages which reach up into the city's hillside working class neighborhoods, the city government has also poured in resources to promote ‘e-culture‘ in both working-class and upper-class parts of the city. Much of the city government's thinking about the internet as a tool to promote inclusion, however, was stuck in the 1990's and dependent on platforms provided by corporate sponsors like Microsoft.

The ambitious young leaders of the HiperBarrio project have invested a great deal of time in reaching out to the municipal government in order to explain how tools like blogging, podcasting, and online video allow communities on the margins to gain valuable technical skills and media literacy while enabling them to write their own online history. Acknowledging the importance of the HiperBarrio project, the local government provided funding which allowed the HiperBarrio bloggers to attend Campus Party in Bogotá, one of Latin America's pre-eminent technology conferences. Hopefully the Medellín municipal government will continue to recognize the importance of grassroots new media projects like HiperBarrio and provide official support and recognition.

Etsy + Foko = More Bloggers, More Voices from Madagascar

Etsy has established itself as a wildly popular online marketplace for indie designers. Independent craftsmen and women, jewelry makers, and fashion designers are able to distribute and sell their goods online without losing a major portion of their profits to retail stores or having to pay costly rental fees to set up their own physical store. One of the thousands of talented designers on Etsy is Kristina, who makes handbags like this one:

As Kristina writes on her blog, a portion of all bag sales from her Etsy page will be donated to Foko Madagascar to provide more cyber-cafe coupons to its members so that they can continue to access their blogs. Foko Madagascar has also managed to publish some of their bloggers' posts in a local English-language publication which provided payment in order to re-publish the articles. These are two innovative ways to achieve sustainability.

Online Donations to Empower Women in Bangladesh

On the latest post from the Nari Jibon group blog, Bangladesh from our View, Sujan explains how Nari Jibon provides Bangladeshi women with skills rather than money in order to provide more opportunities. As little as $17 covers an entire Microsoft Office training program including four cyber-cafe passes. Donors like Marc Fest based in Miami, USA have already supported Nari Jibon's training activities by donating online.

Read Poetry, Support Citizen Journalism in Kolkata, India

Kalam, the organization behind the Neighbourhood Diaries project in Kolkata, India which trains young people in marginalized communities how to become citizen journalists, has released a PDF version of their annual Open Box of Poetry which is available for a suggested donation of US$5. All proceeds will go toward continuing Kalam's outreach work in Kolkata. Special thanks to Romina Oliverio for purchasing the e-book and promoting it on her blog.

These are just a few ways that Rising Voices grantees are seeking sustainability as they continue to train more and more bloggers from under-represented communities around the developing world. What about you? Do you have any ideas for how citizen media outreach projects can continue to fund their operations?

Greetings from the sixth annual Interdependence Day in Brussels, Belgium. I am here with Rahool Goswami of the Neighbourhood Diaries project in Kolkata, India and Patricia Rakotomalala of the Foko project in Madagascar, both of whom are representing Rising Voices at the first ever Youth Summit of Interdependence Day.

Pati and Rahool at Interdependence Day

Intellectuals, political leaders and artists from around the world gather each year for the four-day forum that corresponds with the 9/11 anniversary to help find cooperative alternatives to terrorism, and to help create democratic solutions to global challenges related to economics, the environment, technology and health. The theme of this year's forum, “The City as Commons in a Divided World”, examines the challenges facing multicultural cities like Brussels as microcosms of the greater challenges to peaceful co-exitence in our era of accelerating globalization.

Here is a ten minute promotional video about the event:

At last year's Interdependence Day in Mexico City the organizers of the event realized the importance of involving young people in the discussions about achieving global interconnectedness and ‘interdependence', which led to this year's inaugural Global Interdependence Youth Summit. Around twenty young participants from around the world representing Rising Voices, Remedee, OneVoice, and the The Flemish Youth Council all came together to discuss issues related to intercultural dialogue.

Participants of the Global Interdependence Youth Summit

For Rahool Goswami from the Neighbourhood Diaries project, this was his first time out of West Bengal. Here are his impressions on the differences between his hometown of Kolkata and Brussels:

The Youth Summit gave the participants an opportunity to interact with well known intellectuals and celebrities like Cornel West who candidly answered whatever questions were put to him. Here is Professor West speaking about the internet, hip-hop, and hierarchies of power:

Dalia Labadi, one of the Palestinian representatives of OneVoice also produced a video interview with Cornel West about the Palestinian struggle. The youths also had a chance to talk amongst themselves and lead their own discussions, including a dynamic group exploration of identity.

The final day of the conference was specifically dedicated to the Youth Summit. Unfortunately most of the adults from the previous three days did not attend the youth forum, but all of the Youth Summit participants were pleased to find out that they will be invited to next year's Interdependence Day which will take place in Istanbul in September 2009. They made several suggestions about how the Youth Summit can be expanded and improved.

The final panel of the conference examined “The Need for Intercultural and Transnational Collaboration.” It gathered Benjamin Barber, James Early, Adam Michnik, and Ferenc Miszlivetz along with four of the youth participants: Shlomo Haar from Israel, Christoforos Pavlakis from Greece, Patricia Rakotomalala from Madagascar, and Hainalka Szarvas from Hungary. Unfortunately most of the conversation bounced back and forth between the adults on either side of the table, which makes Pati's point about adults needing to take more seriously the thoughts and suggestions of youth all the more poignant:

There were originally supposed to be five young representatives from Rising Voices at Interdependence Day, but Diego Ospina, Deneiber Mesa, and Taslima Akter all had difficulties securing their visas. Hopefully they will be able to join Rahool, Pati and the other youths at next year's Global Interdependence Youth Summit in Istanbul.

While Diego, Deneiber, and Taslima were not able to join us, we were fortunate to receive a surprise visit by Sipagasy, a longtime supporter and volunteer of the Foko project who is based in Paris. She wrote a post in French on the Foko blog about her participation in the event, and particularly the guided tour of Molenbeek by activist priest Daniel Alliet.

Rising Voices has shown that, slowly but surely, the internet can bring together individuals from across cultures, countries, and languages. But nothing beats being able to sit down face to face and enjoy relaxing conversation. We are grateful to the organizers of Interdependence Day for enabling us to do just that in Brussels and we look forward to more great conversation with more diverse voices in Istanbul next year.

According to the introduction of this year's anthology:

Khola Baskho or Open Box is a platform for marginalized youth to share their untold stories, reflections and artwork. We believe that all of us have stories inside us, waiting to be told. Through this annual magazine we wish to present to you the random thoughts, bits of poetry, and fleeting yet powerful insights hidden in the folds of the daily lives of artists living in the margins. And in this way, we want to build up a relationship between these anonymous poets and their readers.

In the spirit of building that relationship, Kalam has allowed us to offer an eBook version of this year's Open Box. The print version is sold for US$ 5 in Kolkata. We strongly recommend making the same donation when after downloading the electronic version. You can securely donate $5 using PayPal.com by pressing the yellow “Donate” button below. All donations will go directly to Kalam to support their Neighbourhood Diaries citizen journalism initiative.

(Right click, save as | 10.5 mb)

As a sample of the poetry featured in Open Box, here is the English translation of Rahool Goswami's The Lazy Afternoon Tale:

Till yesterday, my afternoons were not as lazy.
It's be the regular routine of college or work
Or adda or the collage of dust on the street.
Busy life - it never stopped, not for a moment,
But today …
The afternoon is endless;
After a long time, I am alone in my room today,
On a lonely afternoon.

Nupur, the neighbour's daughter,
Comes to the veranda to pick up clothes she'd hung up to dry.
On seeing me she bursts into an innocent smile:
‘Oh Rana-da, you're home? At this hour?'
Before I could respond,
Nupur's mother calls her into her house:
She scrambles trying to arrange the dried clothes as she runs.

A slice of the veranda appears beyond the door curtain:
A few little birds twitter, fly around and settle in my vision;
I lie down on the bed,
And I remember how I would lay my sleeping head on my
father's hands.

In the house opposite ours, Aunt Mitali abuses a customer:
I guess, the man's done what he wanted to do, but doesn't want
to pay up …
I've heard this so many times since childhood that I feel nothing now.
Earlier, when neighbours cussed around,
Father would say,
‘Don't listen to all that - just keep yourself busy'
I remember those words a lot,
Today.

Hundreds of thousands of people all over the world have already seen some of Calcutta's toughest neighborhoods through the eyes of its young residents thanks to the success of photographer Zana Briski's documentary film Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids. Briski first headed to Kolkata (Calcutta) to photograph the city's large prostitute population. “While there,” according to the film's Wikipedia entry, “she befriended their children and offered to teach the children photography to reciprocate being allowed to photograph their mothers. Much of their work was used in the film, and the filmmakers recorded the classes as well as daily life in the red light district.”

The youngsters proved to be talented photographers and were able to capture a slice of Calcutta daily life that evades visiting foreigners. However, the photographs that were selected, the ultimate story which was told, was still left to the movie's editors and producers. Once the film's 90 minutes are up, those children exit our lives forever.

Partha Banerjee, who worked on the film as an interpreter, even went so far as to write a public letter to the organizers of the Oscar Awards which claims that the children featured in the film ended up worse off in the end. (Updates on several of the youth were published on the film's website in 2006.)

Kalam Co-Founder Bishan Samaddar explaining the organization's mission and history.

Kolkata has a rich literary heritage including India's first Nobel Prize winner, Rabindranath Tagore, and legendary filmmaker and author, Satyajit Ray. If Mumbai is home to Bollywood, India's version of Hollywood, then Kolkata is its New York, a writer's city. However, its long list of literary greats almost all come from upper class (and upper caste) families. Kalam founders Sahar Romani and Bishan Samaddar believe that creative writing - and its benefits - should not be restricted by class, caste, or neighborhood. They founded Kalam and began organizing poetry and creative writing workshops in Calcutta's marginalized neighborhoods.

Kalam's staff members Nargis and Bina Doloi describe Kalam's current outreach programs. (The video should read “Nargis” and not “Rohit”.)

Last year they received a Rising Voices microgrant to fund a pilot project which teaches the fundamentals of citizen journalism and blogging to youth groups affiliated with partner NGO's in Calcutta. Under the leadership of director of programmes, Urbi Bhaduri, Kalam first partnered with SANLAAP, an Indian feminist NGO, to train around 10 young people living in Calcutta's Bowbazar neighborhood. The group met a total of 13 times from November 2007 until June 2008 when Urbi fell ill and was no longer able to facilitate the citizen journalism workshops.

Each workshop focused on a new topic and left the young citizen journalists with a new assignment to investigate for the following week. They took their pads of paper, their pencils, and their growing sense of confidence to the streets where they contemplated the stereotypes about their community, the landmarks which define it, their own homes, the characters, livelihoods, the ability to make local social change, and more.

In fact, the Neighbourhood Diaries project blog is practically a guide book for how to run a successful citizen media outreach campaign in a marginalized community. The pilot project only ran into one problem, albeit a major one: they had a difficult time teaching the new citizen journalists how to transfer the articles they wrote using pen and paper onto blogs which we could all comment on and link to. Rather, Urbi would collect their notepads and painstakingly transcribe and translate their articles which she posted on the project blog. (For example, see the jouranlists' reporting on local livelihoods and fashion.) Learning how to type in Bengali is difficult enough - you must use special software which converts phonetic, romanized versions of Bengali words into the proper script characters. There is still poor unicode support for the Bengali script as well. The citizen journalists, hoping to learn how to publish online, left the internet cafe frustrated and despondent. On top of it all, Kalam's staff had difficulties convincing cyber-cafe owners to let in 10 young people from a marginalized community to use the computers for a workshop.

Anjali, in a message to the Foko bloggers in Madagascar, describes what she learned in the Neighbourhood Diaries citizen journalism class.

The Neighbourhood Diaries course in Bowbazar has now come to an end, but as you can see in the video above, its legacy will hopefully live on in the confidence and camaraderie it gave its participants. Rahool Goswami, at 19-years-old the oldest of the participants, will be traveling to Brussels for the Global Interdependence Youth Summit where he will join other Rising Voices citizen journalists from Colombia, Madagascar, and Bangladesh.

The Neighbourhood Diaries project will soon continue in another neighborhood. Kalam is now approaching other Calcutta-based NGOs to find a youth group that is close to a computer lab or willing cyber-cafe.

Finally, on a personal note, when visiting the Bowbazar project I was amazed by just how well the citizen journalists described their community. They took me around and showed me the landmarks they had written about and the local personalities they interviewed. We even tried a hot kati mutton roll at one of the food stalls they featured. Rather than recording video of all this myself, I handed my video camera over. The first video in this post shows what they came up. It was a great reminder to me that, in some cases, video has less of a barrier to entry than text.

Special thanks to Rezwan for all the time he put into transcribing and translating the sub-titles of the above videos.

“When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another, that’s citizen journalism.”

According to him ‘the people formerly known as audience‘:

“are those who were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one another— and who today are not in a situation like that at all.”

The audience has now transformed to an independent media. We have now our printing press – the blog; our own radio station, the podcasting, our own TV station, the vlog; our own gallery, the photoblogs; our own alerts, the twitter feeds and so on.

One may ask is that a problem? Who will be the audience when there too many speakers? The time has changed. We don't need to subscribe to TV guides anymore. We have on-demand and distributed contents, search engines and rss feeds to select what we need. Tom Curley, CEO of the Associated Press says:

“The users are deciding what the point of their engagement will be — what application, what device, what time, what place.”

Yes we don't quote them or us as audiences anymore but as users in this era of participatory media. Here the users also participate in debates, submit comments to the author using forms or blogs as reaction.

There is also a fine line between citizen media and citizen journalism. “Citizen journalism is a specific form of citizen media as well as user generated content” (Wikipedia) which includes a message, an information, a rhetoric, not only some personal diary entries.

Now why do we need our rhetorics to be shared with others? Do we need to preach our ideas? React to what is happening in the community or in the world? Do we need the activism? Do we need to be proactive in the expression of our opinions? Yes, if we believe in democracy and freedom of expression we need that.

The use of such rhetoric was first seen in as early as the fifth century B.C. in Athens. A democratic governance was emerging on the basis that all citizens had an equal right and duty to participate in their own government.

“To do so effectively, they needed to be able to speak in public. Decisions on public policy under the democracies were made in regularly held assemblies composed of adult male citizens; and, as in New England town meetings, anyone who wished could speak.” - On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse, Book by Aristotle, George A. Kennedy

This is probably as much true in today's world. We feel the need to share with others our successes, our plights, our threats, our challenges in the community as a member of it. Almost all of us feel a regular need to persuade someone of something, to defend our actions, and to organize our thoughts so that others will understand our point of view. We may never be engaged in a public career or may never make a speech to a large audience but with citizen media we have the freedom to express ourselves to those who want to listen.

Not only rhetoric and civic discourse are necessary for engaging in a meaningful democratic process, but these are required also to change things in our communities.

Look how the various Rising Voices projects are embracing citizen journalism and digital activism:

* The Neighborhood Diaries in Kolkata India are teaching youths from marginalized community to be citizen journalists, a status which they feel very proud of when they are on the streets interviewing someone and sharing it with the world.

* Some of the participants of Hiperbarrio project in Colombia wrote really informative articles like what Xady wrote on Colombia's medical service and we saw how the community came together to help when one of the participant wrote about Suso's plight.

* FOKO in Madagascar saw some brilliant pieces of citizen journalism and activism when Diana blogged about a project that helped cure a Kamba baby, Avylavitra wrote about the devastations of cyclone Ivan that devastated Madagascar, which was under reported in the international media.

* Cristina Quisbert, a member of Voces Bolivianas project is a perfect example of how individual citizen journalism from an ignored indigenous community can make an impact worldwide with her brilliant works.

* Women bloggers of Nari Jibon in Bangladesh uses video to show how they celebrate Bengali new year. Something an International TV channel will rarely show.

* Pablo Fores of the Ceibal Project describes how the OLPC laptops can make an impact in the most disadvantageous areas of Uruguay. A sixth grade student analyzes the performance of the OLPC laptop and shares with the world - that is the beauty of citizen journalism.

These are examples of what the Rising Voices projects are doing in the field of citizen journalism.

Nari Jibon aims to provide alternative education and skill development programs to the poor and under-privileged women of Dhaka. They teach them Bangla, tailoring, English, computers, ICT and photography among other things. From its website:

Nari Jibon has established a blog in English, titled “Bangladesh from Our View” and Bangla “Amader Katha (Our Stories)” to increase students’ & staffs’ creativity on different areas. Nari Jibon’s blog efforts have resulted in a two year grant from Global/Rising Voices to improve students’ blogging skills, including interviews, photos, and video training.

The Nari Jibon bloggers have so far produced almost 300 posts (both in Bangla and English) in these blogs. In Rising Voices archives you can read features with photos, watch videos and listen to podcasts about the Nari Jibon citizen media outreach project to learn about its progress, its challenges and successes.

We have asked the people behind Nari Jibon, its educators and a participant how was their ride in the world of citizen media during the past one year.

Kazi Rafiqul Islam, Project Director, Nari Jibon

* What were the major challenges of the Nari Jibon Blog project you faced and how did you overcome them?

a. We started our blogging activities with limited resources: a few cameras, an old video camera and our computers did not have the required capacity to do blogging, video posting etc. well.

With the Rising Voices fund we could buy additional digital cameras, video camera and could upgrade our computers and that helped the bloggers and our trainers to continue editing, uploading/posting articles, photo and video etc.

b. One of our biggest challenges was to receive constant and reliable electricity amidst frequent load-shedding (power cuts).

We have bought a powerful UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) with the Rising Voices grant that helped a lot to continue our staff/students blogging activities and also continue their classes on time. We still could not solve the problem completely and we are seeking more funds to buy an additional UPS/IPS.

c. Our computer graphics teacher started the blogging activities and played the main role in setting up both the English and Bangla blog for NJ. But within a few months from the start of the program he left for personal reasons placing us in a difficult position to continue with our blogging activities.

We then asked our computer teacher Taslima Akter to take responsibilities to continue blogging. She had a little knowledge about citizen media tools so she had to work hard (read many journals, Books and practice on videos, photos) to get the things under her control. Later the Rising Voices citizen media guide also helped her a lot. I must say she played a prominent role in continuing and developing our blogging activities.

d. Many Bangladeshi women have limited education and don't have access to computers; especially they are weak in English language.

We have now three English and computer teachers including a visiting English teacher from USA who are trying their best to make the students conversant in English and make them computer literate so that they can give their best efforts in blogging. We also have staff development classes on English language and computers and they are gradually developing in those areas.

e. Some of our students’ guardians started to ask “what is the (monetary) benefit in writing in blog?” “Why they are giving extra time at Nari Jibon in blogging?” etc.

To solve the problem we arranged meetings with the students’ guardians every 3-4 months to describe our students’ blogging activities and highlight our best bloggers. We started awards for best blogs in English and Bangla and given free cyber café passes to our best bloggers that are encouraging others to write in blogs. We made students’ guardians understand that they are not wasting their times. They are increasing their skills through blogging that would help them to make them self-reliant in future.

f. Security was a very big issue as the neighborhood cybercafés are insecure for women. Female staff/students were feeling insecure going out side to interview, to collect information for the blogs.

To solve the problem we are providing a secure space to express their voices/experiences- activism through blogging. We have a equipped cyber café which is only for women where they can practice, brows safely for collecting information to write in the blogs and that are broadening their knowledge and developing skills. We also provide safe transportation and accompany female students during field trips.

* How do you feel about the success of Nari Jibon Blog?

I do not want to say that our blogging project/activities are completely successful but I must say that we are on the right track that might lead us to reach to goals and successes in future. We need to recruit more bloggers, increase community awareness to reach to the goals.

I would say through blogging, our women students have increased knowledge on different blogging software, camera operating, video making, writing skills in English and Bangla and also have increased their level of confidence to communicate with others and to work outside their homes. Now they can go outside to find job, take interview for blogging without fear. Now students’ have increased awareness on their lives, rights, and responsibilities, what to do, how to do and what not do, and how to make their voices heard. They have also learned more about other bloggers and people around the world. In turn, the over 23,000+ readers of our English blog have learned much about Bangladesh: cyclones, culture, songs, favorite places and foods, animals, and issues concerning young women as well as wives and mothers: education, security, violence against women, and prospects for change.

Although some of our staffs have their own blogs but we are yet to arrange setting up students own blogs as some of our senior bloggers had to leave Nari Jibon as they had completed their courses. Some are busy with their job and some can not come due to their exams and they do not have computer of their own or internet connection in their residence. Still we are contacting them and assuring that they have free access to our computers and internet facilities as and when they can come to blog. We do hope that in near future some of our students will be able to set up their own blogs.

Taslima Akter Tama, ICT Educator

* Tell us about your experience in bringing the women of Nari Jibon into blogging.

For the last one year I am training the students on basic of blogging; from the technical part of blog publishing to maintenance, photo, video, developing their personal voices, methods of writings etc.

At the initial stage of our blogging activities we got very few students who were interested to write in blogs and also some others saw it as a burden. But as the time progressed we continued to encourage our students for writings in blog and we emphasized reading other blogs so that they can learn more about blogging, its necessity and importance. We also have made them understand that blogging increase their personal efficiency and develop them in various accepts of their lives; it can change their lives and develop themselves. Blogging can help them move up quickly and it is good for their career and also they can use their free time creatively.

To recruit more bloggers we gradually have incorporated blogging in every course curricula and accordingly we started to give them blog related homework/assignments. So students are submitting their writings as class assignments. After receiving Risings Voices mini grant, we arranged our first workshop on Blogging and invited a Bangladeshi professional blogger Razib Ahmed. Through this workshop our staffs and students have learned many things about blogging and also this workshop encouraged us to go forward with blogging.

We had our second blog workshop with Mr. Shawn Ahmed of the Uncultured project. We learned many new things like photo and video blogging. This workshop encouraged our students and staff about doing video and photo blogging. To get our students more involved in blogging we also started awards for best bloggers in English and Bangla that made the students interested to blog. We also got to know much about Flickr account, face book, photo blogging and benefit of blogging etc from Ms. Kira Karikar who is a Venezuelan journalist/blogger. Rising Voices citizen media guide played an important role in recruiting students’ bloggers, training on blogging etc.

* You have been instrumental in providing these students a powerful tool for self expression. How did you break their shyness and minimized their frustrations? Do they cherish this voice?

It is true that students were feeling shy to write and submit their writings on different topics. They were confused whether their writings are ok, what the readers will think or comment reading their writings etc. and for that reason we hardly get their writings. For example Mony didn’t want to sing in front of camera. She felt embarrassed but I encouraged her to sing. When she got good response from readers like David, Kathy and others she was very happy. That made her more confident to go forward that we have seen in her role in our pohela boishakh (Bangla New Year) program. In my “first day of spring” video Sherin Sultana and Mahfuza Parul hesitated to stand front of camera and then I insisted them to imitate journalists taking interview for TV news. Finally they did it and received good response from readers/viewers. Now they are not afraid of raising their voices that we have seen in the drama where they acted on Pohela Boishakh celebration program, which will be posted soon.

I am trying my best to express/share my thoughts, experience and knowledge with my students/ bloggers so that they can change their attitude, get rid from shyness and frustrations. I always listen to our students problems, thoughts etc. carefully and answer their all queries to improve their blogging skills. We assure that their mistakes in writings will be edited before posting. Seeing some of our students successfully writings in our blog site most of other students became interested to write in the blogs. Now they are confident in writing, taking interview, creating ideas for blog etc.

Mohtarimun Nahar [Bipa], Supervisor of English Section & Editing

* What did you learn from blogging?

Now I know what Blog is and how to post articles because I have my own blog. I also think I have improved my English and Computer skills from Blogging.

Whenever I go to anywhere I try to capture natural beauties on my camera. I want to share my thoughts and memories with the readers through Blog which I didn't do before.

Md. Golam Rabbany (Sujan), Research and Field operation Lead of Nari Jibon

* Do you think that bogs can be a powerful tool in raising concerns and awareness among Bangladeshis regarding the anomalies in the society you portray in your blog?

I think blogs can be a powerful tool in raising concerns and awareness among Bangladeshis regarding these issues. But it is also true that still now most of the educated people in Bangladesh are ignorant about blogs. Very few people get the scope to browse Web Pages because internet connection is not widely available in our country till now. But the internet usage is increasing day by day and we can hope that within a few years a large number of people will be introduced to blogs and blogging. And then blogs will be a powerful tool in our country.

Firoza Begum Poly - Student/Blogger

* Tell us about your happiest moments in blogging?

I went to the Ekushey Book Fair 2008 and submitted a post on the fair. There I met some writers. It was my happiest moment.

* Do you get comment from the readers about your writing?

Yes, I got encouragement and good comments from the readers.

After successful nine workshop sessions the project took a break throughout February and March this year because the participants were busy with their school exams. However for the educators there was no break. Urbi and Bina were developing and refining their blogging skills with the help of Aparna Ray from Global Voices.

The innovative curriculum of grooming citizen journalists from scratch is very well done by Neighborhood Diaries project and it is well-detailed. Inspired by Neighborhood Diaries, Kalam had conducted in March-April a series of workshops with a Kolkata-Based social communications organization. The aim is to engage para (neighborhood) clubs “with a mandate of social development, helping them to go beyond performing certain altruistic activities with the community throughout the year, equipping them to take on the role of para resource centres.” Read more about it here and here. I hope the neighborhood centers will also include blogging and other citizen media activities in their agenda.

The workshops of Neighborhood Diaries resumed on 23rd of April facing many challenges. Reconnecting with the young citizen journalists after the long break was a daunting task as only half of the twelve participants were present. Some of them moved away and could not be informed and some of them were involved in other projects. But hope is there because most of them promised to be regular in the future.

The 10th Session taught them how to type and send emails. The obstacles in the words of Urbi Bhaduri, the facilitator are:

Most of them have not handled computers and keyboards before, so this will take a lot of time and practice. Additionally, there is a language barrier in using the English interface. However, each of them logged in to their personal account using their passwords, and sent a basic email to the rest of the group. They typed in Bangla, using English alphabets.

While discussing with the participants on their next assignment they chose to write about the footpaths in their para (neighborhood), the footpath dwellers, the tiny food stalls on the footpaths.

We have got a few interesting stories from the participants posted in the project blog in Rising Voices. A footpath (sidewalk/pavement) is meant for pedestrians. But its space is vital for those who need a free space to sell something to earn their livelihood or just to spend the night. Thus ‘footpath stories’ bring to us a whole new dimension of footpath.

Tania writes about a footpath vegetable seller:

“Like this, she fights for a living every day. She knows she will have to go on facing the challenges of living out in the open in different seasons like summer, winter and the rains.
In the rains, the pavements are often swept away by water, causing her a lot of problems. Apart from this, people are always walking on the footpaths. She has to live with them walking all over her space. But she is compelled.”

Footpaths are also home for these people. Jyotsna tells about their perils:

“Often out of the blue, police cars come to dismantle them from their pavement homes. Then they try to hide their possessions as best as they can to prevent them from being confiscated by the police. “

The Day 11 was frustrating as it came to an abrupt end within half an hour. While the participants were trying out their new Bangla blog “Bowbazar Diaries” the cyber café computers shut down and the café technician was not available.

The main challenge it seems to impart digital literacy to the participants:

It is a whole new world for these youth, as they hail from extremely marginalized communities, and everything starting from the interface in English, getting a feel of the keyboard, and the idea of having a “cyber address” (in the form of one’s own email id or blog space) as compared to a “geographical address” is completely new.

The 12th workshop was postponed due to an accidental death of a kid in the neighborhood, who was close to some of the participants. It was rescheduled on 19th of May and on this day the participants went out to survey the street food in their locality.

Urbi Bhaduri sets the prelude: “Bowbazar’s street food is mouth watering and very affordable”. So the idea of a writing assignment on street food seemed tempting. And what a joyful thing for the participants was that!

“Under a reddish stormy sky with the dust blowing into their faces, things getting blown away and being carried along the old streets of Bowbazar by the wind in its wake, the intrepid six chose their favorite foods. Each was given Rs. 10/- to taste whatever they wanted. Rahul wanted chowmein but, unable to make his way to it, settled for kachori (fried chapatti like things with a stuffing of spicy pulses). Robi wanted to invest his allowance wholly on tea.”

Like Urbi we are eager to learn what the participants wrote from this assignment.

From their project blog:

We start off each session by sitting in a circle and sharing last weeks reading. Then we proceed on to the next assignment through interactive activities, discussion, group games, individual and sometimes, outdoor writing. Catch a glimpse of our Monday evenings below:

Details from the sixth session:

“Session Five’s journalism assignment was an investigation and interview on different personalities and characters of Bow Bazaar. Through our discussion in the session, the youth journalists came up with Goondas (neighborhood bandits), Neighborhood Beneficiaries, Heroic Survivors, and Bhashan Baaj (folks who have something to say about everything).”

Below are some highlighted excerpts from the participants portrayals of neighborhood characters. The original texts were in Bangla which were later translated by the ND project leaders.

Tania and Jyotsna portrays Monoranjan Das, A Kind Hearted Para Beneficiary:

“He gives away blankets in winter time to the poor and needy. He provides medicine from his shop to people when they need it.”

Supriya and Pinky Lal writes about Tulshi Mashi a surviving woman:

“She thinks only one thing– that there was a time when she had to beg for rice. But now she has been able to stand on her own feet. She has come a long way.”

More writings on what it's like to live in the community by participants were updated recently in the project blog:

Surojit writes about a Garments seller:

“After having studied till standard viii, he had to leave studies due to problems at home. He is now 24 years old. He sells clothes underneath the Sealdah over-bridge. At home he has his parents and two sisters. He shoulders the responsibility for each of them. Since he could not complete his education, he hasn’t been able to land a better job. He hopes that his sister will stand beside and support her parents when she becomes independent.”

Pinky Lal shares the plights of a domestic help:

“The rooms have beds in two tiers there. If one takes the upper bunk, the cost is Rs.1450/-on a monthly basis whereas the lower bunk costs Rs. 1300/-. So Buli decided to opt for the lower bunk.”

Tania Mondol writes about the struggles of a fish seller:

“Tapa is doing this business ever since childhood. He has had some level of education. Even with his education, he was forced to take up this job because he had to take up the responsibility of his parents, a younger brother, an older sister and her ailing son. He sells varieties of fish in the Bowbazar area, and earns enough to be able to meet the demands of an ordinary life.”

Rahul Goswami shows the inhuman living conditions of a shoemaker:

Musha da is a shoemaker. He is not a bit ashamed about this identity. He belongs to a lower middle class Muslim family. His room is like a dark, claustrophobic pigeon-hole. Musha da himself does not recall what colour the walls of the room had been. It is a 6 foot by 4 foot room. There is no bed, but a chatai and pillows are laid out on the floor. The walls are nearly covered by hanging heaps of saris and other clothes. There is no separate space for cooking, the lavatory has been curtained off to create a small kitchen. There is no window in the room, not even one as small as a mirror. The smell of the room is a peculiar medley of leather smells, the smell of cream shoe polish and dampness. Though it is not apparent from outside, once you enter the room you feel that it has ended even before it has begun.”

And Anjali shares the heartbreaking story of a sex worker, Jyotsna:

Jyotsna had studied upto class 2. She did not enjoy studying, and therefore left it. When she was 11-12 years old, she was married off in a social ceremony. Her puberty started 3-4 months after her marriage.

Read on the upsetting story how her husband committed suicide and how she was compelled to choose prostitution, to feed her daughter.

Session seven’s assignment included showing participants ways to make changes in the neighborhood. One of the methods to teach these budding journalists is enacting a problem they see emerging in their neighborhood (from their own perspective) and enacting a solution they think is feasible (from their perspective). They were given a home assignment to write an article researching a Problem/Issue of their neighborhood.

We hope that with these amazing workshops these citizen journalists will not only be good writers but enrich their knowledge and human qualities as well. Though the Neighborhood Diaries participants will be taking a break throughout February and March in order to prepare for their school exams, we look forward to their return at the beginning of April.

Last night the facilitators and participants of HiperBarrio organized a multimedia event at the San Vicente Ferrer Parish in San Javier La Loma, Colombia. Over 100 people showed up, which, given the size of La Loma, felt like the entire town.

The newly trained bloggers, podcasters, and videobloggers of HiperBarrio showed off the movies that they have been producing, the photographs that they have been posting online, and the articles they have written. I am certain that it was the first time that the residents of La Loma saw their own daily reality, as documented by their sons, daughters, and friends, displayed on a big screen.

And they were clearly impressed. As I was hiding in the back of the room with my videocamera, I had the satisfaction of hearing the audience members exclaim how beautifully the photographs and videos were produced and giggle when some embarrassing moment was caught on film for all eternity. Not only did we celebrate the new media skills of the HiperBarrio participants, but they also shared their offline talents. Milthon entertained with one of his infamous clown routines, Sady had people dancing and clapping along when he played clarinet with his band, and Jorge amazed all with an incredible hip-hop performance which mentioned the names of every HiperBarrio weblog. Last night the residents of La Loma realized just how much talent the youth of their small working-class community has cultivated. And, thanks to the internet, the rest of the world is starting to realize as well.

Before the event concluded, we also watched a video which was recorded the previous evening in El Alto, Bolivia, where the participants of Voces Bolivianas sent video messages to La Loma in order to establish stronger links between the two outreach projects. You can view the video here - English subtitles will hopefully be available in the coming week.

Voces Bolivianas

Thursday night was the closing ceremony for the first pilot project of Voces Bolivianas. Diplomas were handed out to all of the 20+ new citizen journalists and prizes were awarded to some of the most-dedicated bloggers. But, perhaps most exciting, was the announcement that this week Voces Bolivianas will carry on with two new workshops. One will focus on women bloggers in El Alto while the other will be held in Santa Cruz and facilitated by Jessica. Make sure not to miss Rezwan's latest feature post on VB and you can see photos of the closing ceremony on the Voces Bolivianas website.

Nari Jibon

After a brief break during the holiday season, Nari Jibon's young women bloggers of Dhaka, Bangladesh are back at work. Just a few days ago the Nari Jibon participants were visited by Shawn of The Uncultured Project. Forty-four of Nari Jibon's students showed up to the workshop where they learned how to upload videos to YouTube and create podcasts. Shawn also shared his experiences of visiting areas that were devastated by Cyclone Sidr and showed them videos and pictures of his trips. Shawn says that he will visit Nari Jibon again in the near future to help them expand their new media knowledge.

Neighbourhood Diaries

For anyone wanting to learn some of the most original and innovative ways to start a local new media workshop, the project blog of Neighbourhood Diaries is practically a manual. Though Neighbourhood Diaries got off to a late start compared to some of the other first round grantees, we are slowly but surely becoming better acquainted with all of their talented participants. Make sure not to miss Rezwan's recent feature on the Neighbourhood Diaries project.

Think Build Change Salone

The Thing Build Change Salone, which has armed NGO interns with blogs to describe their experiences in helping rebuild Sierra Leone after years of civil war, was confronted with all the obstacles that could be expected of a project based in a country that is still rebuilding its infrastructure and institutions. Even so, thanks to the TBCS participants, we are able to become much more familiar with Sierra Leone than would otherwise be possible.

I recently heard the wonderful news from project leader Vickie Remoe-Doherty that Sierra Visions recently received a grant from the Internet Society to establish a digital village in Freetown. With ready and consistent internet access, we will surely be hearing much more from the TBCS interns in the months to come. Once again, Rezwan's feature article on TBCS is a must-read.

Five New Projects

Of course, one of the most exciting developments to cap off this extraordinary week has been getting to know the project facilitators of our five new projects based in Uruguay, Jamaica, Iran, Madagascar, and Kenya. Deserving special mention is Repacted, a citizen media project in Nakuru, Kenya which combines the techniques of Magnet Theater with the power of new media tools. Over the past few weeks, they have been instrumental in encouraging peace and conflict resolution in the aftermath of Kenya's post-election crisis. They received special mention from popular Kenyan blogger Daudi Were.

We have witnessed an incredibly sense of community take place among the participants of each of the first five Rising Voices projects. They have become more than just bloggers. In fact, through their weblogs, they have become much better friends. Over the next six months hopefully those friendships will extend from one project to the next, over borders, differing cultures and languages.