FOKO Madagascar

Our community is celebrating its 2 year anniversary this October. The Foko Blog Clubs always start with workshops in cybercafés where  volunteers from the precedent round teach very simple new media tools such as blogging and   pictures. Video workshops were very difficult to plan given the quality of connexion. The learning curve from activists who are used to be more involved in the field than virtually was regularly progressing and everyone always took care at supporting each other as much as possible when time and money permitted. There are now bloggers who didn’t have mailbox before a FBC workshop who are very active on our Facebook/Google group mailing lists! There are bloggers who were very shy ,who are now updating their blogs regularly ! If there is a topic or an event important to be reported (and most of the time forgotten by mainstream media), you can be sure a Foko blogger will write a post, publish a picture, update his Twitter , tell it on Facebook or simply let the word out (read article on Foko Blog Club from The Courrier International blog). In order to learn more about these amazing personalities we’ve started since January 2009 a serie of interviews celebrating their first year of blogging. You will learn the real reasons behind their online activism and discover (like we did) the keys to sustainability.It mainly resides in the bloggers’ passion for Citizen Media.

Find out Who is Imahaka? Who is Rasmetal?Who is Moonlight?

Reaching to the provinces was one of the greatest challenges at the Foko Blog Club. We have to thank this time the  generosity of each coordinator who have been the real heroes to Foko’s successes. Jaona or Patrick were never afraid to make the long trips from Fianarantsoa or Tamatave to Antananarivo to join the events scheduled by Stephane. They never forget to share with their communities and send news  from their corner of the island. We were very proud when both of them have been selected to join events abroad. Jaona described his Monterrey’s trip as a mission to voice out the activism of Malagasy Youth in ICT and Education and this month Patrick was invited at Addis Abebba as a special reporter for the Rising Voices during the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) conference . He also took the time – despite his very busy schedule as tour guide, student in management at the Bsrikadimy’s university and BUEC English Club webmaster - to help singer Razia Said find places for her pledge to plant 10000 trees for Zebunation reforestation project.

Looking for the right place where we can plant a trees

Last month, Foko was present at UN summit on Climate Change and it was an opportunity to advocate Madagascar’s environmental echues but also its causes. Stephane’s work from G20 summit where he met tcktcktck activists was echoed by  the entire Foko community on the Blog Action Day on October 15th. Antsirabe bloggers were the first to update theor blogs thanks to the support of their teacher Randy. At least 8 posts calling for local Action on Climate Change were posted by this amazing group of leaders who have been giving a lot to let the world know that Madagascar’s youths are standing proudly and are ready to act more ! and don’t forget they were the activists providing first hand news to international media thanks to bridges such as Ushahidi, or Twitter networks, so always keep a careful eye on what Foko bloggers are streaming from Madagascar to the world !

Links and Twitts from Dagomc and Tahina following the Afrobasket Women 2009 competition in Antananarivo.

I’ve seen a better Madagascar
The miracle did not occure. We didn’t expect one but we also didn’t think of losing by as much as +50pts (39 to 90). The Malagasy team was not a match for the Senegalese in the 4th day of the tournament. Senegal remains then at the top of Group A. “Self confidence”, we didn’t have it once we steped on to the court yesterday. We knew it was going to be hard and a win was out of reach but that should not have prevented us from playing a better basketball. It is so frustrating to see your team . Note : Madagascar was supposed to host the FIBA Africa Women Championship in 1972 but could not because of the unrest at the time. This year, almost the same thing was about to happen. A problem of unpaid wages was evoked yesterday as the responsables of the stats claimed what was due to them. It is said that they had a talk to the Federation and everything has been settled.having a poor game though you know they can do better.

When FOKO started exactly 2 years ago, we had on our agenda a panel of ideas that we creatively wanted to turn into successful projects. With the help of Madagascar based activitists we reached to associations and individuals which already had experiences in working with communities and where recognized for their efforts in social activism. After a very active winter ( in the southern hemisphere) with mutliple workshops and gathering, September came as month where our efforts became recognized internationally and where the coordinators at FOKO had the chance to give back to the world which means….travelling cross the oceans to add Madagascar’s citizens’ voices to echues such as ICT and Education, Fight against poverty and Climate Change.

FOKO Efforts in promoting Citizen Journalism during the 2009 Political unrest

Many Twitterers based in Madagascar were already actively reporting on the events but FOKO bloggers took thei activism further by going on site and finally in June 2009 hosting a second barcamp this time dedicated to Citizen Journalism. Coordinators invited the journalists members of the Antananarivo American Press Center to transfer their weekly Friday Talk meeting at Barcamp location and mix with citizen media communities. This event was also an opportunity  for Lova, coordinator based in the US to finally meet the bloggers who has been corresponding through blogs for years. Patrick who is FOKO’s most active blogger came with HKambora and Cunie from Tamatave who were impatient to share their stories covering political manifestations on this side of the country. After few meetings in Antananarivo, Lova and Global Voices Libgua translator the French journalist and FOKO’s number one Fan headed to Majunga to support the social activist Zouboon and little Kamba’s family (please read Kamba’s story reported by Avylavitra and Diana). Randy from ESSVA Antsirabe took also a part in this extraordinary event by bringing along with him students from this notorious Malagasy school of Journalism (many of ESSVA graduate and FOKO bloggers are now working at national media). A BBC article summarize their involvement and the neutral position of bloggers during the crisis and a photography workshop helped them improving their skills.

FOKO  Efforts in promotiong ICT in Education published and exposed in media and educational publication

Bloggers from province have hard times finding good connexion and their work remain dependable on these logistical problems but it doesn’t mean that it diminishes the quality of their social activism. Jaona from Fianarantsoa proudly announced us about the mention of FOKO’s exemplary achievements in promoting new initiatives in ICT for Education in a UN-GAID publication and was invited by the international francophone agency to introduce FOKO’s work. Hopefully he will be able to share more on this amazing opportunity part of UN Millenium Development Goals on his blog, during a future workshop in Fianarantsoa or an interview. Locally BUEC students from Tamatave organized a tree planting a their university to show their commitment to Madagascar’s environmental preservation. Their work was reported on national newspaper Midi Madagascar which brought them a great sense of proudness and gave Malagasy youth inspiration in getting more involved in environmental initiatives.

FOKO Efforts in promoting social activism in fighting against poverty and climate change shared on international stage

Stéphane,co-founder and only FOKO coordonator based in Madagascar, is tirelessly travelling from provinces to provinces and communities to communities since 2007. He was on the verge of planning , yet, another tree planting outing with Malagasy-American singer Razia who is partnering with FOKO in her 10000 trees project when the invitation by Oxfam America White Speak and Act initiative to attend and cover UN summit on Climate Change in New York city. Only 40 bloggers worldwide were invited to this opportunity to ask our leaders about their commitment to fight Climate change and Stéphane is getting ready to report the events in to Malagasy, French and English speaking communities from his blog and on FOKO. On the same week, he will join Voiceteam as well in Pittsburgh to attend G20 summit and this time will bring light to Fight against poverty. FOKO was also committed in reducing poverty in Madagascar since Stéphane’s trip in Kelilalina in 2007 where he met local communities and brought their voices to the world. But this doesn’t mean that a blogger has to travel cross the ocean to promote their social activism. Patricia, one of FOKO’s youngest blogger, has attended a special UNICEF photography workshop to help Malagasy youth take pictures of the causes that were close to their heart. At her level and with FOKO spirit in mind, she is taking part in reducing poverty around her…

from Kelilalina

“Dairy overproduction amongst farmer with minimal prices”
Today farmers who rise dairy cows meet overproducion problems in the city of Antsirabe, and especially in the Betafo region (26 kilometers west of the city). Most of these farmers depend on the collect that TIKo does, as it is the principal producer of dairy products, but consumers have reduced their intake since the crisis. And so milk is sold by the bottle in the streets at the lowest cost, to avoid total loss by the farmers, they also now make home made yogurt, and there is too many of those on the streets and consumption diminishes day by day. Milk is useless if one does not sell it on the same day. Milk can also be used to make cheese (informally), but the price is not correlated to the quantity of milk to be used. So these farmers have to find any means to gain revenue based on their own production.”

And as always, but with a special mention to Patrick, kudos to our members whose enthusiasm and consistency at blogging should be noted. We are proud of you.

Journalists, Youth Clubs, Students, Bloggers, … During the month of April, many activities and events were attended by the bloggers on their own initiatives. We must remind here that this is an important step for our organization. When members of Foko community get to promote Citizen media and initiate activites on their own in order to become spokeperson for Foko without the  implication of the co-founders (who were also very busy this month).

Antananarivo Miblaogy 5 : Behind the nicknames, real life activists

Ariniaina and ICE Club members of Foko were heavily representing the new generation of bloggers at this edition. As usual it was a semi-private meeting between bloggers from the capitale were they has an opportunitiy to share about their experiences on blogging. Tahina, shares :

The most interesting part for me is no doubt when they shared their experiences during the on going political crisis. The difficulties bloggers have to face when they are on site. And me, I was like a kid doing what I think I’m best at … listening, laughing and snapping some shots

Foko introduced to Malagasy Diaspora in France : Thank you Sipagasy

Without the support of the Malagasy blogosphere, the Foko Blog Club project couldn’t have got nowhere. Sipagasy who was there from the beginning by commenting and participating on forums and chatrooms, took her activism further for the past 18 months. She was one of the supporters at the “Class of 2008 graduation party” and also visited Patricia in Brussels during her September 2008 Interdependance Conference trip. This April, she was our spokeperson in Nantes were 5000 Malagasy meet every year for the annual RNS (Rencontres Nationales Sportives – National Sport Meetings). Many asked about the purposes of the Foko Blog Club project and why blogging is important to Malagasy Youth. Of course it was surprise to them to learn that hundreds of young Malagasy were updating their blogs from provinces where the connexion is very difficult to get. They also asked if it was only for leisure as blogging is a very popular tool for French teens to express themselves. But Sipagasy told them about activism during this 2009 political crisis and shared videos and pictures from the many many social activities where Foko bloggers got very involved.

From Sipagasy album

New York Soul of the New Machine Conference : Lova tells about his Foko involvment in Human Rights, technology and new media

Lova who was strongly relaying on the bloggers from their twitters and blogs on the development of the 2009 political crisis had the opportunity to share about Foko’s activities :

As you know, Foko primary mission is to document the everyday lives of Malagasy citizens and local agents of environmental change, not record potential human rights violations by their government. Yet, the ongoing crisis decided otherwise for the time being. The hub was a great opportunity to meet and learn first hand from Human Rights activists present at the event.

The participants also discussed about the The Foko Ushahidi plateform specifically data accuracy, fact-checking and the use of mobile reporting. And Tahina, to Solana Larsen of Global Voices has more details on the tremendious work Foko bloggers are doing :

there were a few obstacles to overcome but FrontlineSMS developpers ( Alex Anderson, Carlos Genz and Ken Banks) provided timely technical support and sped up the release of a new version they were working on to take into account the urgent need for an SMS/computer interface for the Madagascar crisis. We cannot thank them enough for helping us establish the first project to collect SMS reports directly onto a computer via the intelliSMS software.
The Ushahidi team was also tremendous in setting up the platform quickly and showing us how to modify the interface to allow for the translation of key words, categories and timeline.

Friday  Talk at Antananarivo American Press Center : teaching New Media tools to journalists

Bloggers were invited by the ACP staff to share their knowledge on New Media tools to journalists. Herizo, among many ICT associations representants, who has already worked with Foko during October 2008 Barcamp and Ebit events, was the lead trainer during this “special workshop”.

Herizo (in blue) From r1lita Flickr Album

Dizains of new Twitter accounts were created but first they had to convince the journalists to take more involvment in New Media which wasn’t an easy part, watch Tahina’s videos :

When Antsirabe meet Tamatave : The power of Love

Randy Donny and Patrick were busy planning the ESSVA annual Spring trip to the provinces and this time they chose Tamatave. After a long trip, they arrived singing and smiling at Bakidimy’s University and were warmly welcomed by all the BUEC and Ravinala guide associations. Videos, Twitters, blog posts were published regularly by Patrick during their meetings.

The wonderful trip took a very sad turn at Tahiti Kely Beach when one of the student was taken by the waves. Randy shares about his protégé Frédéric :

He was just 21 and just got his baccalaureat last year with his friend Parfait. Their teachers from high school contacted me and shared about their financial difficulties to pursue their studies. I didn’t know them at all, I never even met them but I took them under my wings and brought them to Antsirabe. Then I took their cases to the ESSVA grant commission with the intentions to get them to study here. They won’t have to pay fees, I wasn’t disappointed: they made  good grades, have social skills and attended to classes everyday. Frédéric was interested in everything and was always asking around on everything, everyhwere he goes. He was the pride of ESSVA. He was part of the little group I gather and helped so they could succeed in their studies. The Gods of the Sea had decided otherwise and changed Frédéric’s fate.

As we were making our monthly round of reports on FBC activities, we noticed that we didn’t take the time to properly introduce our October 2008 addition, here at the Rising Voices, the talented ESSVA classes of Journalism and Media from Antsirabe.

ESSVA, Ecole Supérieure Spécialisée du Vakinankaratra“ in Antsirabe was founded in 1999 and has became a distinguished professional education center in Madagascar with students coming from all the regions including the Comorros Island to graduate in Journalism, Ecotourism, Management, Education, Engineering and since 2008 in Restauration. Foko had the priviledge to have a citizen media workshop at this prestigious school with Randy Donny a professional journalist who is teaching the 2nd and 3rd year in Communication and Media. Our partnership was renewed when the school staff allowed the students to attend and host the E-bit technology fair in Antananarivo on October 17th helping the entire Foko community to introduce Citizen Media to thousands of Malagasy high-schoolers. After 6 months of activities, this new FBC location is still very active despite the recent events and their heavy school schedule. Imahaka, Raslmetal and Micramia were also very alert and took part at relaying news during this 2009 political crisis (they joined Facebook, Twitter and the Ushahidi Squad). We were also very happy to learn from Randy that the bloggers are still very motivated and have helped opening dizains of new blogs since.

I urge you all to support Imahaka by posting comments on his blog. His latest posts are worth the reading. And we also have new bloggers, we have to put on Foko list because they passed the ’salutation’ stage : http://pchutedia.wordpress.com, http://andrikely.wordpress.com, http://seheno.wordpress.com, http://marcelgallo.wordpress.com, http://nouny.wordpress.com. And we have a new girl from Fianarantsoa http://mahatsiatra.wordpress.com and a student from the Comorros http://zalinasser.wordpress.com. You might keep looking for these new blogs that we still need to be fixed : http://pocahonthas.wordpress.com, http://jtaxx.wordpress.com, http://muldejangama.wordpress.com (a girl from Majunga), http://mirlucia.wordpress.com and http://Nanncy.wordpress.com

Young girl participating at a local talent show! from Imahaka’s blog

As the political crisis is getting new developments but the media focused on the capitale only, Jelona the new coordinator from Fianarantsoa was able to bring more news from his region publishing pictures of daily manifestations. He will put all his energy in training new bloggers to Citizen Media not to cover the events only but also to introduce the extraordinary cultures and traditions Betsileo region.

Jelona’s blog (http://jelona.wordpress.com) was created in March 2008 and is from Fianarantsoa

Patrick, über Twitterer, is by far the most hard working blogger of Foko community when posting videos regularly and bringing wonderful stories from Tamatave’s region. Recently he has helped Julienne to open a blog : http://juleetam.wordpress.com and updated us on the port staff’s strikes, rumours of a Diabe (political march), the results of a Volley Beach tournament and the very touching interview of Bosco :

Do you know why he is walking around alone like this?

Tahina, who is in charge of the Ushahidi aggregator in Antananarivo, has showed to many Foko how to use this new citizen meda tool and many bloggers were interviewed by International Media such as the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Lemonde. Lova is reporting on Ushahidi:

Amidst increasing concerns over the political instability in Madagascar and the safety of local news reporters, citizen media has made an important  contribution to the understanding and documentation of on-site based reports.

Report news from your location by texting directly to Ushahidi

Foko Pictures on Flickr

Back in April 2008, Diana Chamia, a student at the school of journalism of Majunga, published Kamba’s story and called for help. Dozens of bloggers and internauts all over the world contributed to a campaign to bring the baby to Antananarivo for surgery in June 2008. (cf: Rising Voices post) Diana was joined by people with big heart who dedicated time and love to Kamba and this family kept on caring for him when they got back to Majunga after a successful operation. Avylavitra became a close friend, an uncle, who was the first to let us know about the sad news of Kamba’s sudden passing.

Mitomany an’i Kamba kely ny foko 

Many of you heard about the story of Kamba (his name was Antefindrazana Tombotsara, he was born on June 7th 2007 in Mahabibo, Mahajanga). The child was brought to neurosurgery in HJRA to operate his rare illness and the successful operation was relayed by medis such as Midi Flash or Madagascar Tribune.

We did our best to give him the best health care possible, humanly possible, but Andriamanitra, our God who gives and takes back, called little Kamba to be next to him this morning. (…)

This morning, as one of my friends who was also close to the family called and told us about an urgent news – Kamba had to be rushed to the hospital after another crisis – we had to send his mother phone credits in Mahajanga by E-recharge so she could call us, here in Antananarivo, as soon as she meets a specialist and gives us more details on the situation. After we sent the credits and waited for her to call back, I ran out of patience and made the call myself. She gave me the time to finish my questioning and thanked me for the credits then in a burst of tears told me :

He is gone, uncle, our little Kamba is gone! My child has died! It has nothing to do with his Antananarivo’s trip but Kamba has died!

(…) For all of you who knew him, who have heard of him and all of you who just know about him from this post, I want to let you know that Kamba is still in our hearts, alive. Keep praying for the little twin sister, he left behind. Keep praying for his mother who did everything in her power to find the best and filled the little time he spent in this world with joy and happiness. 

Let’s remember the wonderful work we did together for Kamba, keep it in your minds as one of the most beautiful memories and don’t give up on the many little Kamba who still need your help (…)

From Gazety Avylavitra, March 19th 2008

During the past two weeks, the bloggers of the Foko network have taken fully charges of every aspect of the Citizen Media project. Twitter was the object of everyone’s interest when we advised  to connect their Facebook accounts to this micro-blogging tool, Antsa and Koloina jumped on the idea and Tahina shared his experience with mobile phone updates on this very active thread (the community is very actively exchanging tips everyday on facebook, blogs and mails). So don’t forget to update your Twitter contacts  list:

“efa ele no niandrasako ny momba ny twitter ka kisaotra betsaka tamin`ny fanazavana raha toa ka mila more fanazavana dia manontany eny ihany e! koloina”

I was looking for a way to learn to open my twitter account, thank you for the explanations when I get to it I will come back to you guyz for more questions.

“wep j’ai essayé le texto sur twitter, pas mal, le coût est le même qu’un sms international, ça dépend donc de votre opérateur en tous cas pour zain c’est 340 et quelques ariary.”

wep i tried texting on twitter, it costs an international sms, it depends on your operator but on zain it’s 340 and something ariary.

 Patrick on his facebook status updated with Twitter on February 7th during Cyclone Gaël alert .

One of our prioriry was to bring more and more news from the provinces. Not only because of the very little place they take on mainstream media but also to share to the world the cultural diversity and great potentials of each regions. The return of Zouboon, one of School of Journalism of Majunga talented student, to blogging was good news litterally to all of us. With her articles, mostly written in Malagasy, she adresses, in a very skilled and sensitive way, to matters that occupy the everyday lives of people in Majunga.  When she reports on the difficult return to life after the riots (which also took place in her town on January 27th), she uses an interesting and very professional perspective putting in exemple people she took the time to interview on the streets : Milamin-dratsy i Majunga – Majunga is strangely calm

“Mifaritra eny amin’ny endriky ny vahoaka hatramin’izao ny fahatsapana fa mbola tsy ao anatin’ny fandriampahalemana tanteraka isika(…)Ramatoa Vero na I maman’I Dada araky ny fahalalan’ny maro azy dia milaza mazava tsara hoe “raha vao taratara ny fidiran’ny ankizy mody avy ampianarana dia efa miasa ny lohako sao ka nisy zavatra najoa azy indray sanatria”

Everyone has on mind that we are not in peace yet. Ramatoa Vero or Dada’s mom as everyone call her is very clear on this : “when my kids are late from school I am always very worried something happened to them” *ndrl: many towns in Madagascar are still applying curfews from 8pm to 5 am.

Koloina, who is now a part of the great translators team at GlobalVoices in Malagasy, is sharing the news from Sambava which is the capital of the Vanilla rich region, SAVA . 

“Raha ny any Sambava manokana no resahina dia miaina ao anaty tebiaeby tanteraka ny mponina any noon y disadisam-poloitika sy ny ahiay amin’ny tsy fandriam-pahalemana eo koa ny tsaho iasankarazany. Tsy izany ihany anefa eo koa ny olana aterakin’ny tsy fisian’ny herin’aratra any antoerana ka tsy ahafahan’olona miaina tsara ampilaminana. Na mba te-hanara-baovao aza dia tsy dia tena mahazo vahina loatra saria adin’ny telo na mahery kely isan’andro no mba azon’izy ireo ampiasana ny herinarara (…) Betsaka ireo trano fisakafoanana manary ny tahirin-tsakafony to ny karazan-tsakafo vita avy amin’ny ronona sy ireo hazan-dranomasina isankarazany.”

In Sambava people are worried about the political movements and for their own safety. But the most of their problems is coming from the lack of electricity which keeps them from resuming to normal life. Even if you want to hear news from the radio, you can only get electricity for 3 hours per day (…) Many restaurants have to throw away their foods (seafood, milk,…) because they can’t keep it refrigerated.

And Layshyuu the most prolific videoblogger of the entire Malagasy blogosphere (we hope more and more Foko will join him) illustrates the struggles of the population who depend on tourism and vanilla exportations by showing a video of the market of Bazar Kely in Tamatave under extreme conditions. *ndrl : all Madagascar is still under the threat of a very active and potentially damageavble yearly cyclone season.

please watch his video here

Of course, we are still dealing with the challenges of finding (cheaper) connexions, transfering videos, motivating the troops and even found new obstacles at practicing this passion that Citizen Media has become for all of us. We will expose our problems and successes on the next post for our second self-evalutation 6 months after our first August 2008 one. 

In Antananarivo after learning that all Foko bloggers were safe and sound, we aslo had the extreme sadness to learn that a reporter for the Radio Television channel RTA was among the victims of saturday’ s shooting. His name was Ando, he was a young man whose passion was communication and especially giving a voice to the young Malagasy generation.

As a member of the journalist community, Ando understood the contribution of citizen media to the media landscape in Madagascar if it is done properly. He sought out Foko bloggers and interviewed them for RTA.

More importantly, Ando became a dear friend to bloggers. They visited his family and paid a last hommage to a friend. Additionally, Lomelle and Pakysse gave tribute to his life and what he meant to them in blog posts.

Lomelle writes (fr):

je rends surtout hommage pour Ando journaliste de la RTA qui a reçu une balle et qui en est mort [..] Les membres de Foko se souviendra toujours de lui a travers ce reportage qu’il a fait de nous/( translation):
I especially would like to pay tribute to Ando, reporter for RTA who dies from gun shots [..] Foko members will always remember him thanks to the documentary he made of us.
 

Pakysse says farewell and explains how they met (mg):

nifankahalalanay roa lahy dia tena naha talanjona tokoa satria dia tany anaty cyber raha iny izy anao emission speciale iny lédala dia niresaka izahay [..] ny tao ariana moa dia maro ny projet fa ny tena nivaingana indrindra dia nanaovany ledala emisson tao @ vaovao city news ny RTA dia nahazo minitra vitsy tao ny mpitoraka bilaogy avy ao @ FOKO/
We happended to meet in a cyber center as he was preparing for a special broadcast. After that, there were a few projects but the one that stood out was the report in vaovao city news for RTA where the Foko bloggers had a minute of airtime.

2008 was a very festive year for us and as 2009 was starting, we were looking forward to do more interesting activities to keep our followers passionate about the Blog Club project as well as ways to motivate the very busy bloggers to postregularly. Moma, Nhari and Koloina have chosen to blog on tourism and Malagasy culture publishing a variety of pictures, stories and videos competing with professionals websites on the field. How the arrival of a cruise is perceived locally? When mainstream media reports on the economical benefits, Theo shows dances and festivities celebrating the event. Among the 77 articles posted in January 2009, someone interested in Madagascar (the country and not the movie) could easily learn about youth ingenuity (documented with excellent videos by Koloina, Ariniaina and Patrick), local traditions (such as circumcision by Nhari) and read stories of everyday life from Antsirabe to Majunga. But the regular reader from our Netvibes could also perceive the progress of tensions and sense of insecurity that invaded chronologically and very fastly the lives of everyone in Madagascar.

Vako-Drazana Traditional dance to greet tourists in Tamatave

Tamatave guides like Theo speak at least 4 languages

Team work behind this video includes at least 3 bloggers helping Koloina

Prison breaks rumors started in Antananarivo echoed in Tamatave where the bloggers were hesitant to publish about their local prison break. « The media didn’t mention deaths but we saw it » report the bloggers who concentrated on another event with a great impact on Tamatave’s youth, the Sangany International Conference. The fight over Media was in the origins of the latest political crisis in Madagascar that started this month, Flagmada reported that January 17th was a « Day to remember » when witnessing the peaceful inauguration of « la Place de la Démocratie » in Ambohijatovo. It escaladed fastly in riots and destructions between Sunday 24th and Tuesday 26th.

On January 17th from Flagmada

Just on  January 16th Rondro from FBC Majunga was excited to hear from a bilingual radio show « L’Affaire du Coffret » that would be broadcasted on RNM, Radio Madagascar and produced by RFI, Radio France International on January 26th. « C’est cool » bloggers commented. On January 27th, Tahina (http://www.flickr.com/photos/r1lita) brought us pictures of what is left of RNM and the loss of all the precious archives in the fire by rioters…Twitterers reported that only RFI was broadcasting for few hours and lomelle (http://twitter.com/as2coeur), Ariniaina (http://ariniaina.wordpress.com) and Andrydago (http://andrydago.wordpress.com) were spontaneously live-blogging from work on the evolution of the crisis becoming ones of the reliable sources of informations coming from Madagascar during these dark days.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/r1lita

This January we were training for the arrival of the destructive cyclone season that brings millions of Ariary in damages, hundreds of deaths, thousands of homeless and originate a national food crisis. Eric and Fanele didn’t harm Atsinanana region (Tamatave) but destroyed 80% of Menabe capital, Morondava. With the aftermaths of this political crisis, Tahina is lamenting about the rush to gas and basic food :

«  Is it a sign of panic? People are buying oil by bottles, rice by bags, and soap by packs. This is something that rarely happens in an ordinary day. All the cabs and car owners have their tanks full and use their plastic bottles as a kind of back up. Everybody is getting ready for a food shortage that is likely to happen in the days ahead. I’m afraid the food sector won’t be the only one which will know crises. I already know tomorrow, busses won’t work, I may have to go on foot till my office and probably do the same thing to go back home. »

Andrydago is still blogging every day, every hour

And finally we were wondering how the other Foko bloggers were doing during this time of crisis. Slowly we’re starting to receive (good) news from Diego-Suarez with a cool Diana writing that nothing happened there but that Majunga is in ruins (3 weeks ago Lomelle took pictures of this wonderful town), Antsirabe ESSVA’s chose safety but Tamatave bloggers took many risks and brought us precious pictures and videos of the manifestations just before it turned into riots.

Updating Flickr in the middle of the riot in Tamatave then Patrick lost his phone….

The Foko Blog Club initiative has completed 13 workshops and 4 (soon 5) locations in Madagascar. With co-founders mostly abroad or located in Antananarivo, it became a little complicated following the progress of the clubs and finding solutions to the challenges they each meet. So we came up with the logical decentralized strategy when giving the bloggers more  ”responsabilities” . This, of course means sharing more informations between members, communicate with each other openly (in transparency) and mostly have fun! These past weeks, you’ve been reading new posts from Tahina (http://www.iceclub-mada.com/lita/), Patrick (http://layshiyuu.wordpress.com/)and  Randy(http://essvacomm.wordpress.com/) who have kindly accepted to report on activities from Antananarivo, Tamatave and Antsirabe. As you can see : they have a lot to share ! 

Tahina from ICE in Tanaon RTA’s City News : 

It was not easy to gather all the FBC on a Monday afternoon with an unbearable heat inspite of the efforts made by Mr Pakysse on facebook and through sms since it’s a working day and the whole week was an exam period for some students. We were 6 people to enter Teknet’s training room at 3:00 pm and later joined by Dago, Moonand Nhari. Monday’s workshop was a new adventure for Foko, a discovery for the 2 brand new comers Feno(ICE) and Tsiry (IST), a reminder and blog-update time for the current bloggers and a great experience for everybody, I mean as a shooting.

Diana Chamia on RTA City News 

Patrick from Tamatave on BUEC’s latest activities and on Facebook and periodically his blog : 

Here in Tamatave, we are 6 bloggers: Cunie, Violance, Melinda(clairsttuburn), Theophile, Hanitra, and I, and I would like to keek this number. As you know we are in vocation so Melinda and Violance went already in the place where there is no network, and Hanitra will go soon, but I’m telling you that at least once(1) a week that I’m with them but they always got problem to blog. So I’m obliged to assist them. And every day I remind them to prepare their articles for the favorite festivities. Cunie and Theo will post theirs probably at the end of this week or in the beginning of this next week. HOPE. Now our group plained to assit an iternational congress here in Tamatave on this december. And I try to have the camera in that time. The most problem is about the connexion, it very slow, and as we are in vocation so the University Cyber is closed (ndlr: after meeting in Antananarivo, Theo and Patrick came up with the idea to schedule BUEC workshops at their University’s Cyber where connexion is less expensive). The second problem is we don’t know yet how to upload a video and a voice. But Stéphane will be here in Tamatave during the Christmas and we are going to profit to learn it. Now I’m going to post my favorite festivity. And don’t worry they will post theirs sooner Ciao, T.T.F.N

Opening ceremony of International Student Congress at University of Tamatave

Randy Donny just reported on ESSVA’s latest activities even if they’ve been a little busy celebrating the graduation of their 7th promotion in Antsirabe !!

Last week, we made a list of reportages to produce and we’ll see the results very soon. Otherwise, thanks for the technica support. We are going to share the connexions bu we’re also thinking about getting internet permanently at school. We’re discussing about  it right now in the Moramora way!

 ”Misandratra” promotion from ESSVA

With two English clubs associated to FOKO, BUEC (Barikadimy’s United English Club from Tamatave) and ICE (I’m crazy about English in Tananarive) more posts are now published in English (exactly 176 today). Malagasy along with French were the two official languages in Madagascar before the addition recently of English. It is not always an easy task promoting its use with French having been imposed during last century colonial era and Malagasy, particularly Merina dialect, being common in writing and speaking in every the regions. In fact a large proportion of Malagasy bloggers are only publishing in their mother thongue to keep the culture alive on internet and to improve the vocabulary with the addition of new terms related to technology. But how are things doing back in Madagascar? What are the challenges? Let’s read from ICE and BUEC :

The Challenge of Spelling in English from ICE Club website

November 21st, 2008, there was an interesting Friday Talk session at American Cultural Center ( ACC) from 12:30 to 2 p.m. During that day ;the topic was ” The Challenge of Spelling in English”; presented by the Regional English language Officer Eran Williams.
How well can we master the english language. Is it enough just knowing how to speak; read ;and write. Sometimes even when we write we get stuck in writing some words. The problem is that we don’t know how to spell it correctly. So we end up ; misspelling it. (…)

(…)Why can’t we have our own Spelling Bee competition here in english or Malagasy or french. It won’t be a bad idea. 

in the comments section Andry adds :

I sincerely believe that we, as “English lovers”, should get back to reading books, writting letters with a paper and a pen, listening to radio plays, and discussing topics which really matter. I think that if we take the challenge, we will all benefit from that.

In the Eastern coast, their friends at BUEC are discussing the same echues :

WHY ENGLISH? The creators remarc that there are a lot of students after they got their BACC degree and they have to go at University, there they had no opportinuty to encrease their knowledge in term of English. And as e know that there is no way to follow English subject here in Tamatave because it’s doesn’t exist yet. At the same time we know the importance of English nowaday so we decided to create one club, is the place where the students can increase their knowledge on English.

he (Mr White, the newly elected BUEC president) really want all of the member can express English correctly, but that needs a lot of effort from eah students but that not enough if there is no teacher or some tape or CD video, to teach us what exactly the student must do, also very diffiocult to attend the aims.

Meeting time at BUEC

Moonlight shares about the different social activities at English Clubs : 

 their club MLEC ( Municipal Library English Club is divided into comities: Tourism comity; Youth Social Comity; Fundraising Comity. So if you want to join their club, you have to choose a comity. Like all other clubs , they have other activities like camping; picnics,…… 

BUEC members

And finally let’s show our support to the pioneers by posting hundred of comments on their blogs especially with the come back of Tamatave’s bloggers :

http://clairesttuburn.wordpress.com/ ,
 http://violance.wordpress.com/,
 http://layshiyuu.wordpress.com/,