Earlier in Rising Voices we learned about the Bolivian Voices day, a nationwide effort to train bloggers and bring more people into the global conversation from a podcast interview with Eduardo Ávila.

The day before the event Eduardo shared his hard work and emotions with the Global Voices team with an email. Quoting from that:

In eight sites across the country, approximately 100 Bolivians from “underrepresented” groups will take part in a one-day workshop where they will learn how to create a blog, write posts, and most importantly, be part of this local, national and global conversation. In Oruro, a small mining town, teachers from rural schools will come into town to participate. In Tiqiupaya, an even smaller suburb of Cochabamba, members of neighborhood associations have signed up to take part, and in El Alto, a youth group of young men and women, who go to school at night because they work during the day to support their families, are others who will part of this event. These are just a few examples of who will be present tomorrow.

For me, working and moving back here to Bolivia holds special meaning. In prior stays in the country, I’ve volunteered at orphanages, gave donations to buy children presents at Christmastime or other worthy deeds, but it never felt right. This project feels right, and even though it is a small drop in the bucket with a country of 9 million in an increasingly polarized society, it is the first step. Creating meaningful interaction with one another regardless of class, ethnicity, geographic location, is just what this country needs…

Photo: Hugo Miranda training participants in Oruro

People are eager to learn what happened on the 19th of April, 2008. While the project blog is yet to publish the updates in English, I went digging in the Bolivian blogosphere to learn more about this day with the help of machine translation.

Enrique Canedo writes [es]:

This new initiative was designed to continue the process of digital literacy, which began in 2007 in the city of El Alto. Only this time it took place simultaneously in seven cities (nine places), which were: El Alto (2), La Paz (2), Santa Cruz, Montero, Oruro, Cochabamba and Achacachi.

At the end of the day 68 new bloggers were trained across the country.

He also posts a short video which can be viewed here.

The volunteers who made this event possible were:

Mario Duran, Hugo Miranda, and Eduardo Ávila, the main force behind the Voces Bolivianas project, selected the other trainers from the Bolivian blogosphere and they participated with enthusiasm.

Boris Miranda was a trainer in La Paz and wrote two reports [es] about his experiences:

It went well and was beneficial to both sides. In other words, I firmly believe that the workshop will be beneficial for both the people who participated as well as a learning experience for me as a presenter.

Alexis Arguello, who was in charge of training in El Alto II with Christina Quisbert wrote a very comprehensive report. He described in great details on various aspects of his experiences on the diversity of participants, logistics management and the state of the internet cafe. The report has two facets on various issues, what really happened and what ideally should have happened. This may be used as a pointer for preparing the next workshops.

From the report we learn that the challenges were to make the PCs ready with workable browsers, dealing with some late comers, some deficiencies were in the manual regarding opening of Gmail account which killed time, and lack of contingencies in the resources like food and internet cafe time which crossed the limited budget. But the trainers did well to manage these.

Watch a video of the Oruro workshop taken by Hugo Miranda:

And here is a list of the blogs [es] created that day in Ouro.

Cristina Quisbert lists the new blogs [es] opened by the participants of the El Alto workshop she conducted. She notes that the Bolivian bloggers community are gradually emerging in rural areas.

Joup Blog has some interesting statistics to share. The number of Bolivian Bloggers using the platform Blogger rose from 8900 to 10,100 in just two months from February to April, 2008. That is an average of 18 blogs per day.

Hugo Miranda also reports that [es] the event got press attention as a local TV called Bolivision took footages of the workshop and interviewed Mario Duran.

THE JOB: The Public Health Editor will be responsible for writing weekly articles which cover the latest discussions and topics related to public health and human rights in the developing world from citizen media like blogs, podcasts, and video-blogs. S/he will work closely with the rest of the Global Voices editorial staff (managing, regional and language editors), and will also be expected to attend regular online editorial meetings.

As GV is a virtual organization, the Public Health Editor will not be expected to relocate. Regular access to high-speed internet connectivity will, however, be a key factor in being able to carry out this job.

The position involves:

• Surveying the current citizen media space to find blogs, podcasts, and vlogs focused on public health issues in the developing world.
• Introducing Global Voices readers to how health activists are using citizen media to spread awareness about public health issues.
• Interviewing and introducing the grantees of Rising Voices’ latest health-focused grant competition.
• Liaising between public health bloggers and journalists looking for stories to report on.

This is a part-time position with modest compensation, for somebody who is passionate about helping to amplify the voices of health activists concerned with human rights from the developing world. It is also a great opportunity to become involved with a global community of bloggers who are working on the cutting edge of citizens’ media.

THE REQUIREMENTS: Our ideal candidate has an international outlook and solid experience both in citizen media and public health. Solid English-language writing editing skills are a must, and a strong familiarity with the current tools, web sites and trends in citizen media worldwide is important. Familiarity with the regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia is particularly desirable. S/he has the ability to work independently and responsibly with only remote supervision.

Ideally, s/he will have the ability to read and write well in at least one language other than English and have a working knowledge of other languages. Preference will be given to candidates from outside the United States and Western Europe.

To apply, please send your CV and a letter of interest to outreach@globalvoicesonline.org. The application deadline is Saturday May 24, 2008.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An excuse to get together by Gabriel Jaime Venegas

Let’s start in Medellín, Colombia where Juliana Rincón has translated a post by Gabriel Jaime Venegas, a librarian and the coordinator of the La Loma-based Convergentes group of HiperBarrio. ConVerGentes was recently selected as an example of how the internet can be used to form a stronger sense of offline local community - and posts like this one reveal why. Using a simple projector and BBQ, the ConVerGentes group gathered last Saturday to watch the movie Freedom Writers, eat some good food, and spend some quality offline time together. Venegas also notes that they have recently “started working as construction workers.” After making a short internet documentary about the poor housing conditions endured by one of their community’s members, they decided to help build him a new house. You can watch a sub-titled video about Suso here. Photographs and videos of the construction process of Suso’s new house will be posted soon.

Help Me Help Them by Diana Chamia

The group of bloggers in Medellín aren’t the only ones using their blogs to help out members of their community. In the small town of Majunga, Madagascar, a young journalism student recently missed her bus stop and only realized her mistake once she reached city hall. On her way back to the town’s market she came across Philomène Georgine, a single mother with twin children. While one of the twins is perfectly healthy, the other has an abnormal growth that constantly attracts the stares of onlookers, but little sympathy from neighbors and family. That young journalism student is FOKO blogger Diana Chamia and she is now organizing a global and local, online and offline, campaign to help the Georgine family.

Moni Singing by Taslima Akter

And now a special treat from Shahida Islam Mony, who takes computer classes at the Nari Jibon center in Dhaka, Bangladesh. We have heard Mony’s beautiful voice once before. In this video, edited by Taslima Akter, she sings a Bengali song in celebration of Pôhela Boishakh, the Bangla New Year. So far there are nine other videos on the Nari Jibon blog which show the bloggers singing and dancing to celebrate the day.

Analyzing the use of laptops in the first month of class by Sixth Grade Class of Canadá School

Discussions around the One Laptop Per Child project tend to be as intense and polarized as a national election. But few of the pundits who express their opinions about the project seem to read the direct observations of the students, parents, and teachers who are now using the laptops in Uruguay and select other regions around the world like Nigeria and Peru. In this translation of a post by a sixth grade teacher at the Canadá school in Uruguay, we are able to see a list of the weaknesses and strengths of the laptop in the classroom setting one month after its implementation. You can see pictures of students working with the laptops here.

Make sure not to miss Rezwan’s excellent summaries of the latest content and activities from the Nari Jibon and FOKO projects. As always, we have new videos, photos, and links on the main page.

Map of Madagaskar:
White-Antananarivo group
Blue-Toamasina group
Orange-Mahanjaga group

Joan Razafimaharo of FOKO writes:

For 6 months, we taught the basics of blogging and each member was free to come back on the next session, blog outside the hours and join our many outdoor activities. When the Flickr and video sessions started, the bloggers proved their skills and commitment.

FOKO uses innovative ideas like skype conferences, chat rooms to communicate and coordinate with the three workshops and the FOKO team members located in different parts of the world. Lova (Indiana), Mialy (Washington DC) and Joan (Montreal) thanked the team and friends who helped build the FBC network via skypecast.

Introducing other Rising Voices grantees:

FOKO continued to introduce the other Rising Voices projects to its bloggers in their local languages. Last month they have highlighted Prison diaries, Repacted and the One Laptop per child (OLPC) Uruguay projects.

Mini Blog competition:

FOKO arranged a mini blog competition among the participants of its workshops based in the three Madagascar provinces. Every blogger who published his/her first 6 posts were eligible to join the event to compete for the first prize - a digital camera. The deadline for competition was 26th of April and the idea motivated bloggers to write more. There was a flurry of posts and the FOKO blog club found it difficult to keep track of the submissions. They have taken help of the social bookmarking site Del.icio.us to collect them for the competition. You can find all the English, French and Malagasy posts of the competition here.

The winner was announced on April 28th and the 1st prize went to Karenichia. She is a high-school student and blogs fluently in three languages - Malagasy, French and English.

The 2nd and 3rd place holders received internet connection vouchers.

Film Your Issue:

Two of the FOKO bloggers have participated in the Film Your Issue contest. They worked hard with the help of the FOKO instructors to edit the video and you can see their end result:

Patricia’s video is exposing the Ankarihary lake located downtown Antananarivo which is dubbed as the lake of shame because of the intensity of pollution. The Video is available in Rising Voices subtitled in English and other languages using Dotsub.

Photo- FBC -Dominique the street kid

Nombana’s video report on a street kid in Madagascar raises awareness on poverty that make kids to leave school to provide for their families. The Video is also available in Rising Voices and subtitled in English and other languages using Dotsub.

Blog Workshop:

FOKO’s Mahajanga workshops were a success thanks to Lindsay, a Peace Corps Volunteer stationed in Madagascar who instructed the participants.

Photo: FBC - Karenichia (the winner of the mini blog contest) brought Foko’s gift to Lindsay (left) who left Madagaskar recently.

Joan writes about the Mahajanga participants:

“Mahajanga’s new citizen journalists are not only showing great promise but are already realizing them. The posts are engaging, numerous and in three languages: Malagasy, French and English. Take a look at the posts, translated in English here. Subjects range from the universally controversial one of abortion, to posts dedicated to Malagasy customs. We also have a slam poet!”

The 7th FOKO Blog Club workshop with new bloggers was held on April 26th in Antananarivo. As usual It was a joint one again with Mahajanga and Toamasina blog clubs participating from their locations via chatroom and skypecasts.

Photo - FBC: Patricia interviewed by Joan on Skype

This time FOKO employed some experienced bloggers like Karenichia and Patricia in charge of the workshop. Here is a video from the workshop (with English subtitle):

Read Joan’s summary of the writings of young Citizen Journalists of FOKO. They are all blogging for a cause, talking about burning social issues to bring the reader’s attention towards these.

Foko bloggers’ writings will be published in a special column in the Madagascar English Journal, a weekly publication for educational purposes distributed to schools.

Foko Blog Club now faces a challenge: to find ways to make participants blog on their own outside the FBC facilities. There is no free internet access in Madagascar. So FOKO chose to distribute free internet connection vouchers to the members.

You can follow these activities of FOKO by browsing these below:

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

Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices, in collaboration with the Open Society Institute Public Health Program’s Health Media Initiative, is now accepting project proposals for the third round of microgrant funding of up to $5,000 for new media outreach projects focused especially on public health issues involving marginalized populations.

Ideal applicants are dynamic NGOs or individuals who:

• Represent the vital voices of communities affected by stigmatized health issues whose stories, viewpoints, and experiences are often marginalized, unheard, or misrepresented in mainstream media. These communities include people living with HIV and AIDS and/or tuberculosis, people with mental illnesses or intellectual disabilities, injecting drug users, sex workers, LGBTI individuals, people in need of palliative care services, and Roma facing discrimination in healthcare settings.
• Are enthusiastic about using new, interactive modes of communication to build relationships and establish dialogue on the important advocacy issues of their community.
• Envision and highly prioritize media and communication strategies to achieve the advocacy goals of their organization.

Pre-requisite for the competition:

• Organizations must have their own website or participate in a network website.

Rising Voices and OSI aim to bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the conversational web, by providing resources and funding to local groups reaching out to underrepresented communities. Examples of potential projects include:

• Working with a tuberculosis or HIV clinic or local drop-in center with the offer of training health workers, local harm reduction or sex worker outreach workers, patients, and their families to blog and upload video, in order to document their work, their experiences, and their community.
• Use blogs, podcasts, and online video to help give voice and representation to LGBTI communities and advocate for their rights.
• Distribute mp3 recorders to a local NGO working on palliative care issues, and help them produce monthly audio testimonials and/or interviews featuring stories and experiences of participants, for uploading to the NGO’s website.
• Organizing a regular workshop on blogging and photography at a legal aid center representing the rights of people living with mental disabilities. Part of the budget could be used to purchase affordable digital video cameras and internet café costs, so that participants can describe their challenges and life experiences to a global audience.
• Purchasing an affordable digital video camera and teaching a group of local Roma community outreach workers how to produce an ongoing video-blog documentary about their work, which could then be posted to the organization’s website and linked to other networks’ websites.

Rising Voices outreach grants will range from $1,000 to $5,000. Special consideration will be given to proposals from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucusus. Please be as thoughtful, specific, and realistic as possible when drafting your budgets.

Successful projects will be prominently featured on Global Voices.

Completed applications will be accepted no later than Sunday, June 1st in either English or Russian. Please submit your application on the Rising Voices apply page. Russian-language proposals should be submitted here. All applicants will receive a confirmation email by June 3. Grantees will be announced on June 28 at the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in Budapest, Hungary.

***

The OSI Public Health Program’s Health Media Initiative aims to increase public awareness of health issues, especially stigmatized health issues involving marginalized populations. The initiative focuses on supporting health NGOs to develop their relationships with journalists across all media platforms so they may communicate health and human rights issues effectively with the public. Where the media environment is especially hostile, OSI also supports “community journalism” initiatives to encourage NGOs to use digital technology to communicate their stories and issues to each other and to the world at large. The initiative also seeks to build the capacity of media professionals to report responsibly on public health issues.

Rising Voices aims to help bring new voices from new communities and speaking new languages to the conversational web, by providing resources and funding to local groups reaching out to underrepresented communities.

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FOKO blogger and United Nations Clum member Nombana produced this short documentary on Dominique, a street beggar in Antananarivo. The video was submitted to MySpace’s Film Your Issue contest.

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

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

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

Since June 2007 with the help of a micro grant from Rising Voices Nari Jibon started teaching blogging, digital photography, and video blogging by incorporating new media assignments into their existing English, computer, and Bangla classes. We hope you have already listened to a live interview with Nari Jibon founder Kathryn Ward from WBDX’s Big Muddy radio program in Carbondale, Illinois, which was featured in Rising Voices last month. In this interview Ms. Ward described how Nari Jibon gave women in Dhaka, Bangladesh a stronger voice.

Due to unusual electricity blackouts from a recent heatwave across the country the power supply inverters of the PCs in the lab were not charged well. So it slowed writing and posting of the articles by Nari Jibon particpants in their two blogs “Bangladesh from our view” [en] and “Amader Kotha (Our voices)” [bn].

Here are some snippets of what they have been talking about.

Mohtarimun Nahar Bipa tells:

In our country Pitha [home made cake] is a traditional food item. Different types of Pitha are made throughout the year in Bangladesh. But the winter season is the best season for making and having Pitha. To me the best time to have Pitha is in the winter morning.

Learn more about Pitha from her post. Also take a look at this video which shows how pithas are made:

Mohtarimun Nahar [Bipa] also posts photos of her village Digrirchor situated near the India - Bangladesh border.

Here is a video of her village showing the rice fields, greeneries, ponds and farmers at work, a typical sight of Bangladeshi village which is beautiful and pollution free than the urban cities.

Irin Sultana wrote about her study tour in Chittagong, the port city of Bangladesh. She also went to Cox’s Bazaar which is claimed to be the world’s longest natural sand sea beach (120 km) including mud flats.

Jannatul Ferdoush discusses about the workers in the clothing industry of Bangladesh where almost 90% of the work force are women. She points out the difficulties they face and their struggles:

Garments workers’ life is very difficult. They wake up every early morning. At first they are to finish their household works. After that they go out to attend their work. They walk a long way to attend their work. Women workers face many problems. They are to maintain both their family and professional life at a time.

Bangladesh earns million of dollars from foreign countries for these garment workers. But workers don’t get the real respect like other people. We should respect them. These workers are the most important part of our country.

She also discusses the lives of poor people in Bangladesh and recognizes that despite being poor they are very kind and well hearted.

In the Bangla Blog Sufiya Khatun writes about a scary journey on an overcrowded river launch (large motor boat) to cross one of the wide rivers of Bangladesh. She almost fell into the river due to a stampede among a large crowd to get to the only available boat.

কিছু নিয়ম-শৃঙ্খলার অভাবে মানুষের জীবন চলে যাওয়া অথবা মানুষের এই যে হয়রানি এ থেকে মুক্তি পাওয়ার কোন উপায় আছে কি? সরকার এত কিছুর সু-ব্যাবস্থার পদক্ষেপ নিয়েছে কিন্তু সাধারন সু-ব্যাবস্থার অভাবে বড় কিছু ধরনের দুর্ঘটনা ঘটছে। মানুষের যাতায়াত ব্যবস্থার দিকে একটু দৃষ্টি দিলে হয়ত সাধারন মানুষ সস্তি পাবে।

Is their any way to escape from this harassment and risking life because of absence of some rules and discipline? The government has done so much but due to lack of some small rules and regulations in place, big accidents are happening. If these are given priority then the general public can travel at ease.

April 14, 2008 was Pohela Boishakh the first day of the Bengali year 1415. Wishing readers new years greetings Taslima Akter tells a bit about the Bangla New year:

New Year’s festivities are closely linked with rural life in Bengal. Usually on Poila Boishakh, the home is thoroughly scrubbed and cleaned; people bathe early in the morning and dress in fine clothes. People from all walks of life wear traditional Bengali attire: young women wear white saris with red borders, and adorn themselves with churi (bangles), ful(flowers), and tip (bindis). Men wear white pajama (pants) or lungi(dhoti/dhuti) (long skirt) and kurta (tunic). Many of town’s people start the day with the traditional breakfast of Panta bhat (rice soaked in water), green chilies, onion, and fried Hilsa fish. They spend much of the day visiting relatives, friends, and neighbors.

Nari Jibon bloggers got together in the Nari Jibon centre and celebrated the Bangla new year by participating in a cultural program.

Bloggers started their programme with Rabindranath Tagore’s song that has become the “anthem of Pahela Baishakh”—Esho hey Baishakh, esho, esho (Welcome, O Baishakh, welcome). See more from video:

At the function, Nari Jibon bloggers sang, recited poems, danced and they also acted in short drama.

Here in the video Nari Jibon students/bloggers Feroza Begum Poly and Afroza Akter danced with one Bengali song in the program of Baishakh celebration. The song is about one Bullock cart driver who stalks a girl from the village to get on his cart to marry him. She is not interested. He starts offering her attractive promises to lure her to marry him. The song goes on in a joyful mood with the kinetics of the cart.

Nari Jibon posted more videos of the cultural program. These videos were shot and edited by Taslima Akter who has shown great skills at editing.