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.

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

We get the opportunity to teach the 2 first steps during the workshops when introducing the purpose of Citizen Media to newbies (who very quickly become very professional) but videoblogging and podcasting require practice and … a topic/event to cover.

Last year, Diana and Patricia put their skills in good use by promoting a rightful cause. Baby Kamba story was very documented and helped Diana get the world’s attention when Patricia was awarded with an International Youth Contest for her Lake of Shame video. Later, all the bloggers present at Barcamp and E-bit were given digital cameras,laptops and connexion time to cover the events from their citizen journalists’ point of view. You can see more on our Flickr albums from these two intense events and on the blogs. And finally Lomelle, the slam artist, shared her first track on her facebook.

When writing remains the most popular way at Foko, Tamatave group surprised us (during christmas time!) with very touching and interesting interviews. We are still brainstorming together to solve the few technical problems (related to loading the videos!) but you might to get used to see and hear more and more from Madagascar thanks to Foko bloggers.

Theophile on “Teaching about Thankfulness” :

There was one Pastor called PAPU who is from South Africa taught us about thankfulness.
Why is it so important to be thankful? He said in life there are many reasons we should be thankful wether to God or to one person specifically. But we make sure that we love the giver more than the gifts. In that case, even if we lose the gifts the relationship will still remain and that why we the ” Malagasy” people when we give something we always say ” Aza ny hakelezan’ny fanomezana no jerena fa ny fô manolotra” or ” Ny fô manotra no mameno azy!”. 

 

Cunie interviewing Diego Suarez students guests at Sangany Students Conference :

Play (english):http://www.foko-madagascar.org/podcasts/diegostudents-1.mp3

Play (malagasy): http://www.foko-madagascar.org/podcasts/mpianatradiego-1.mp3

Patrick filming the Green Boy on Tamatave streets :

Randy Donné and ESSVA students bring news from Vakinankaratra region and have helped in the publication of FOKO’s first full page on a national newspaper, Hebdo de Madagascar. 

Lomelle, Rondro, Antsa and Diana the talented students from the School of Journalism in Majunga are also intensively taking part in bringing news on the web. While interning this fall at two great Malagasy publications and newspapers in Tananarive, they use their blogs to share stories and opinions on the latest trend or the visit of a famous artist. Lomelle’s pictures from Admiral T show at Antsahamanitra this November.

Last month, Stéphane went back to Tamatave and met Patrick who opened his blog during FBC 6. He brought us the guyz from the English Club and they both introduced them to Citizen Media.

Day 1 : June 27th 2008 Simple blogging session with 3 participants at the time. Knowing the very slow connexion in the provinces we started this technique back in June in Majunga, more attention was brought to each student during the 2-hour workshop.

Day 2 : June 28th 2008 The bloggers were unable to load their own pictures but amazingly had the chance to share few seconds from the GVO summit streaming from Budapest. They felt very proud to be part of FBC amazing community and are ready to put in good use their citizen media initiation.

Day 3 : June 29th 2008 podcasts and chatrooms , No rendez-vous with the global blogosphere on the Foko chatroom was possible this day because of too many interruptions. In place they made an awesome interview of Patrick (in english):

Patrick talks about blogging and the English Club

• BUEC: Barikadimy’s United English Club

BUEC is an English club which is exist at University of Tamatave. It was created by group of students included Rolland, Gildas, Paul, Vohary, Jacquinot, Jean D’Arc, Fredel, Lydovick, Urbain and Patrick is the President actual. It was on 2003 and every years the member is increasing nonstop. In this club, there is no teacher neither students but we help one another. It is a very big opportinuty for the people especially the students at University of Tamatave to increase their skill in English (…)We always got problems about the room where we can have our meeting. Normally we hve to have one teacher at least but because we are all students in and we’re all bit busy of our studies no one of us could be a teacher. Also as a club we have not enough materials like computer, TV. We only have one tape for leastening but sometimes we want to watch a film. more here from http://layshiyuu.wordpress.com

• The war

I think about the word life.I study economic so why I like doing analysis a little about its.The country under developping has a big problem.Now I tell about a malnourished,the children is sorrow they haven’t anything to eat and so on.But I don’t know why the rich country spends his money just for a war. And sometimes its has also traffik for aperson that means they sell a poor people for having a monney . The war or violence exist by a different way.This storry make’s me sorrow.If  you interesting for this what we should do ? from
http://violance.wordpress.com

• New blogs

http://bodoundjan.wordpress.com
http://hanitra085.wordpress.com
http://theophilusman.wordpress.com/
http://hkambora.wordpress.com//
http://clairesttuburn.wordpress.com/

See? They are ready to take over the world and are waiting for your  comment…

Many were present Saturday May 24th (After FBC 9) for the party organized for the blogging contest winners

(pictures here :Avylavitra, Patricia, Nombana, and the Namana Serasera supporters)

Our coordinators and members kept on finding ways, most of the time by improvising, to give more visibility to Citizen Media in Madagascar when the blossoming internet is reachable to only the few who can afford the connectivity and of course the digital knowledge. Because of humbleness, they shared very little about their everyday struggles to convince (people to join the workshops), produce (exceptional and original pieces) and …load their work (which is the most frustrating step). But we’ve started to notice from the nervosity and then the excitment they demonstrated when receiving feedbacks and reactions from sympathizers from all over the world.

Monsieur Vita, Director of the School of Journalism in Majunga, has invited Foko to formarly integrate Citizen Media to their cursus. Starting from last week, Lomelle, Rondro and their 2nd year class will help their 1st and 3rd year peers to the basics of blogging, podcasting and vidcasting ( Patricia in Antananarivo have been leading 2 workshops on her own now). This partnership will help Foko bring more attention to Malagasy provinces and open an official window to the school. We’re currently studying the best strategies to fructify our collaboration with the staff.

Very happy blogging class and improvised FBC.

Stéphane with Monsieur Vita the Director

From the Madagascar English Journal invitation to contribute to their weekly publication distributed to all the schools on the island, we managed to get our English speaking bloggers a dedicated column. Mrs Annelie Rozeboom from the American School of Antananarivo has kindly edited 4 articles from Cylnice and Zouboon when at the same recommending the authors to share more stories from the provinces and most of all touching interviews like this one with little Eliza.

Foko will carry on on improving media citizen skills to our experienced bloggers until the beginning 09-10 school year in October when we’ll open the workshops to new members. UN Youth Club of Antananarivo members have already suggested to learn more on internet and webdesign tools such as Photoshop, video editing and websites designing during their summer vacations with Foko. We’ll also focus more on Toamasina group now that Majunga have received their digital camera and support them the same way on producing more contents on their amazing region and lifestyle.

Congratulations Class of 2008 !!

Let’s recap the recent posts by each cities’ group of bloggers. You will see that some of them wrote about undertaking projects that would bring tangible social changes in their respective communities:
1) The group in the city of Mahajanga is composed of the next generation of Malagasy journalists formerly supervised by Lindsay. On the Foko Flickr album, you can see that many of the authors from Mahajanga are also part of a dance team.

Diana blogs about taking on a project that would help alleviate the congenital condition of a Kamba baby and support his family. Rondro recently submitted a post on Tromba (a Malagasy spirit calling practice) to the English Journal of Madagascar and will continue with her monthly contribution of news from the provinces and writing about Malagasy Culture. Lomelle, who was one of the winner in the FBC blogging contest, MielManja, Zouboon and Jombilo have also provided us with poetry, interviews and surprising stories.

2) The Antananarivo group is represented by the CPO UN Youth Club and bloggers from the Namana Serasera community. FcCandy is currently taking her final exams and we encourage everyone to cheer for this amazing 13 year-old blogger by leaving a comment on her blog. Karenichia and Pati are well-known for their taking charge of some of the FBC workshop activities.

From this group, there is also Witched who recently wrote about a RV common blog theme: How do you have fun in your country? New Bloggers Andovahin, Nombana, Majy and Aikomamy are giving us great hopes as well. Blogging workshops are already scheduled for the summer vacations to keep the students active and will be tutored by Hery.

3) The Toamasina group is now blogging in Betsimisaraka and…English ! Patrick is the president of the Toamasina English Club group and is now a partner of the FBC. We mentioned previously the importance of bringing more attention to Toamasina, a economically surging region with still limited media coverage. Therefore, Foko always awaits posts published by the Toamasina group with great anticipation. Poupoune often contributes to to the Foko Flickr album with impressive photos, hence maintaining a regular inputs from the group in spite of connectivity issues.

How does Foko coordinate everyone’s efforts from 3 cities far apart? The increased internet connectivity is evidently a major help even though for the first few months, each group encountered problems with computer training and spotty internet connection. Since some coordinators are based overseas, Foko relies heavily on text-messaging and Skype to transmit information back and forth. We’re also giving the Twitter platform a try and we are planning on teaching every bloggers the value of this new blogging tool.

Majunga’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 !

We want to thank Lindsay wholeheartedly for her hardwork and dedication. Words are not enough. Lindsay is now leaving Madagascar for good and we wish her greatest success in her search to do more citizen journalism related work. Mirary soa ary misaotra betsaka, Lindsay !

Lindsay and Hery, the UN Youth Club Coordinator and FBC mentor, assisted also the young but talented Nombana and Pati in editing and producing their first vidcasts. They only needed some nudging and pointers to come up with real short documentaries. One is about the life of Dominique, a child beggar in Antananarivo. Another one is about the infamous lake of Behoririka in Antananarivo, a sad case of urban pollution disaster. Both were submitted to the Film Your Issue competition.

Thanks to Lindsay, our bloggers are also getting a special column in the Madagascar English Journal, a weekly publication for educational purposes distributed to schools and sponsored by the American embassy.

And lastly, the last FOKO Blog Club session with new bloggers was held on April 26th. A joint one again with Majunga and Toamasina blog clubs participating. This time we have put some of our confirmed bloggers, Karenichia and Patricia in charge. There was no chatrooms for diasporic bloggers to cheer on the new bloggers. But the blogosphere was still present to discuss Lapino and Dadarabe’s cyberfety and to discover the new blogs.

We are working hard on providing more pictures, more podcasting and more vidcasting workshops.

We also held our first mini blogging contests. Results were announced. The winner will get a digital camera to take more pictures and make vidcasts, the others will get internet connexion, with special mentions to some very special ones who will be promoted to be mentors.

We managed to recrute more than 20 bloggers from Mahajanga to Toamasina and integrate more and more communities. Since October 2007 we asked them first : “why do you want to join the Club?” . These are the answers : “I’d like to meet new friends”, “Will Malagasy from abroad read my blog?”, “It’s a chance to improve my English”, “I want to write short stories”, “I want the world to know more about Madagascar”,…

From FBC-Majunga

As you already realized, our scheduled FBC workshops require improvisation (since the connexion gets cut off too often) and ingeniosity (because we’re always short on money, tutors, cameras and posts!). For 6 months, we teached 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. Each day you can find new images posted and oftenly commented by Lomelle, Poupoune, CPO groups on our Flickr album. With the undergoing contests, you’ll find more videos on our Youtube and Dotsub pages . When Lindsay met Stéphane in Antananarivo this week-end, our coordinators helped Pati and Nombana (our FYI contest participants) for their videos which needed Hery’s from Namana Serasera support for today editing session.

Lindsay and Pati after a very tiring but passionate video workshop

But the greatest achievement remains in everyone’s tenacity to inform and share more and more news and stories when fighting tough conditions in Madagascar. Power or internet connection cut offs happen more than 10 times a day in the provinces; many of our members are still in high-school and university students and have exams ; difficulties to keep on blogging with the high rates of internet connexion ; uploading time require amountless hours; etc. To show them our appreciation and our interest in their work, we invite everyone to welcome our members from Mahajanga by posting a cheerful comment on their brand new blogs !

Which fruits and vegetable look more tasty : Toamasina or Mahajanga ones ?

Our Flickr is updated every 2-3 days now!

The blog posts since their first workshop portray Malagasy youth with a very mature but creative spirit :

Karenichia who is now posting twice a week in Malagasy, French and English (you can watch her thanking the Rising Voices on this video) shares her opinions on society, education and of course boys.

Qui reste-t-il à épouser? Nobody left to marry
Nobody is perfect but everyone has his ideal husband or wife. Who doesn’t know this? I was having a discussion about this with a girlfriend and we discovered that the ideal husband we dream about is a rare specie in exctinction. read more here

Pati who is also part of the group who made the CPO Julf video exposes her ideas on her personal blog:

Les jeunes de nos jours Kids the days

Who are they?
I think they’re human beings who don’t think themselves as children anymore but not ready to act as elders ! There is no age range to define who can be young and it’s up to us to see and sense who can be and who cannot!(…) So be careful young people! We are the young of everyday but also of tomorrow so don’t make a bad start by wasting your future. read more here

Ahasintsoa, Xylone, Kafoumette and Majy have already received cheerful welcoming from the blogosphere who has been regurlarly posting comments and tips to support our youth group.

The titling also refers to the extraordinary work of Toamasina group. Since Stéphane could’t make his monthly trip for the pictures and video training (the 2nd step of FBC ), they insisted in taking their reserved places at the cybercafé ! Poupoune diligently formed 2 friends of hers to blogging and despite the very bad connexion they were able to discuss with their new peers from Mahajanga on Skype. FBC-Mahajanga is a group of talented future journalists .This media is very new to them (the serious side of blogging), they took time to know more about the Malagasy blogosphere and discover the wonders from FBC-Tana and FBC-CPO groups. Lomelle managed to publish her first post during this short workshop and Faliniaina exposes his views on racism. With only a little training but a lot of (online) support, the voices from the provinces came straight from their hearts.

Lomelle : Slam for Life

My name is Lomelle I am 18 and in 2nd year at Mahajanka school of journalism. I’m fond of litterature but what I like the most is Slam poetry. As far as I can remember I always love reading. (…) Freedom of speech : Where no words is forbidden , no topic is tabou. Freedom to boo a slammer when his text displeases us, freedom to applaude when we’re fond of a text. Freedom to proclaim out loudly what we keep in our hearts. read more here

Faliniaina Racial and economical discrimination

How come we still have to talk about this? But it is the reality here in Madagascar. The vazaha (foreigners) come here and see us as we were the poor people who have to be inferior. (…)Myself, I’ve studied, and worked with vazaha in our own country and this is the feeling I have at this moment. We live under the era of economical colonisation. We have the wealth we’re not able to exploit, how will we manage do get out of this dead-end? read more here

Stay tune for more pictures and videos on

• Flickr
• on Youtube
• on DotSub – English sub-titles
• on Bliptv