Empowerment of Yemeni Women Activists in New Media Techniques

On Thursday 15 October, 2009 we hold a workshop on blogging and social networking for ten activists. These activists were really talkative and full of energy. It is like a magic, every time you train new women activists, you got some energy from them.

Before we started the workshop, there were a discussion between Basheer, who was coordinating of this workshop, and some other trainees about the reasons of focusing on women development.

After this discussion we started the workshop with a fear of electricity or Internet connection cutting. However, this time everything went very well.

This workshop was for one day from 8:30 am until 3:30 p.m. It was a long day full of fun and learning. In this Workshop we have added to the curricula how to prevent the right click in the blog, and how to blog through email. These new tips in blogger were really exciting for the trainees.

After the lunch we continued the session and started to talk about facebook, and the person who talked and explained how to use face book was Sadiq al-Samawi. He  likes facebook very much, and knows a lot about it.

Yemen is suffering from alot of problems recently, and the most critical problem is the lack of development. The people is suffering from electricity cutting, which is the most important thing in development of any country in the world.

Lacking of electricity is not the only dilemma, also the internet connection that sometimes is cutting too. Our government is busy in outbreaking war in the north of Yemen and arresting protesters in the south of the country more than development of the country.

We cannot say that the EWAMT project has not been affected by the cutting of electricity and Internet connection. However we have tried to get through all these challenges. For example, we have planned in 19-20 August, 2009 to set a workshop for 9 trainees. In the first day the electricity was cutted, so we started the workshop late. In the next day the Internet connection was cutted too for a long time, so we delayed the rest of workshop to the next Thursday 27 August, 2009.

We always having these problems, but they are getting worse and worse in Yemen.

However, we are keep saying that we will make it, and we are sure that after dark there is dawn.

in 12 Auguest, 2009 all youth in all over the world are celebrating in the day of the world youth.

Here in yemen, many youth NGOs had made events. One of these NGOs was Youth of Leadership for Development Foundation that made an event on  Thursday 14 Auguest 2009.

Of course Hand in Hand Initiative had participated in this event and we had a corner to show our products and projects. EWAMT project was one of our projects, also we talked to the guests about it.

We have noticed the young men were interested in this project, and wondered why they are excluded from joining this project. In this event we extended our contacts, also we knew that EWAMT project is popular among other NGOs and youth initiatives.

We have distributed the EWAMT brochures, and made a video about Hand in Hand Initiative activities  including EWAMT project.

Unfortunately, there were few women in this event, so you will notice through the pictures that most of the people who attended the event were men.

In these event there were many Corners for NGOs and youth initiatives.

Third EWAMT Workshop 17-18 June,09

I did not expect to have this large number of girls who want to have the knowledge of blogging and social networks, so we enforced to looking for a volunteer to be just responsible for receiving these emails and registration. After our success in the first workshop, we received many emails from NGOs candidates their workers to attend our series of workshops. In addition, the most surprising thing that some men called us racial because these workshops are just for female, and they cannot be enrolled in our series of workshops

In 3-4June, 2009 we hold our second workshop for 10 activists from various NGOs at Youth Economic Development Center. This time we had added energizing exercises to the workshop, and the trainer Basheer al-Samawy  made  some funny exercises to the trainees.

After that I started the training in blogging. we had faced some problems such as, the electricity cutting however,  we had finished the implementing of our agenda at that day.

We are not just teaching, also we are learning from the questions of the trainees. We added to the curricula a topic in how to add templates from other websites to the blog. In the next day, we finished the other techniques in blogging then we made discussion in which way we will use our blogs to serve our community. We gave them examples of Yemeni bloggers and showed them their blogs. Moreover, we talked about face book and YouTube, and they all made account in face book and joined the EWAMT group in facebook.The discussion was wonderful because it gave them some ideas about the topics they want to speak about through the blogs. Also, it gave us some ideas that we can apply it in the next workshops. During the break, Many trainees were eating and  blogging at the same time. I wanted to take pictures of them , but they refused that

As usual we had taken group pictures, and taken this lovely picture of one of the trainees.

Be continued……

On Thursday 20/05/09, we started our first training course in  blogging and social network. The team went to All Girls Association in order to prepare the training hall,  hang the banner, check the PCs and ofcourse we did not forget to prepare the break. 

We recieved 14 activists to have the blogging training. We started at 9:00 am. Each trainer talked about her self.

In the First day of training we covered the following topics

1- Creation of blogs in blogger

2- Morals of blogging

3- How to fame the blog

4- Discussion about bloggin and how we can advocate our issues through blogging.

In the next day we covered the following topics:

1- Adding pictures and video from youtube to the blogs

2- Adding calendar to the blogs

3-Orientation about social network and the trainees made facebook accounts and joined the EWAMT Project group.

At the end of the last day, we took a group pictures, and said goodbye to each other; promissed to keep in touch through the blog or facebook.

By the way, the break was deliciuos. Thank you Jamal for preparing the break.

After long waiting for the training , now EWAMT team are making the necessary preparation for the course , which will be conducted in  20-21/5/2009. We are intending to train 20 female activists in this month. the first training course will aim 10 trainees. The second one will be conducted in 27-28/5/2009, and will train 10 trainees too.

At the first,we faced a problem of finding a hall, however, now I can say that we found hall in NGO called “All Girls Association” it is really good to find a hall in association  just for women because Yemen is conservative society, and females prefer to have the training in femininity environment.

Here are some press releases had been published in websites about the project.

http://www.almotamar.net/news/69745.htm

http://taiztoday.com/news/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1281

There are some English sites and newspapers in Yemen will publish the pressrelease, but I think we will wait for them to publish it!! 

The idea of blogging started in Yemen since 2003, and the Yemeni Female Media Forum was the first NGO that held training in creating blogs. Afterwards, we noticed many NGOs were following this path of blog trainings. However, with all of these efforts   there is still ignorance of blogs and its role in the society.

I had made an interview with three young women who have some activities with NGOs and asked them what do they know about blogs? They said it is the first time for them to hear this term “blog”
Here below there is a link of the Video; it will be translated to English soon.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=73115293183#/video/video.php?v=1158734925821&oid=73115293183

In a raining day, Hand in Hand Initiative teamwork had a meeting. They talked about the project, and how they are going to implement it in Yemen. The names of the project facilitators are:

1- Basheer al_Samawi

2-Fathi al_Dhafri

3-Shorouq al_Nono

4- Jamal al_Hanash

and ofcourse Ghaida’a al_Absi

The biggest challenges that we are facing now is the possibilities of finding a lab with Internet access, but we have a great hope,and we will start the first training course in May 2009.

We are very excited

Ghaida’a

With international coverage of the Middle East focused on the Israel-Palestine conflict, the war in Iraq, Iran’s nuclear program, and the financial markets of the Persian Gulf States, little attention is given to one of the region’s poorest countries, Yemen. The few spikes in media coverage of Yemen over the past few years are all related to fears of al-Qaida presence.

In collaboration with the Hand in Hand Initiative, Ghaida’a al-Absi will organize a new media training course for female politicians, activists, and human right workers in order to bring a new perspective to the Arabic-language blogosphere and to build an online network of Yemeni gender activists. It is fitting that today, on the 98th anniversary of International Women’s Day, we announce al-Absi’s initiative to bring more women’s voices to the internet. The deteriorating status of women’s rights in Yemen is frequently documented and discussed, but rarely do women themselves take part in those discussions. By reaching out to NGO’s and political parties throughout Yemen al-Absi aims to change that.