Stories from December, 2008
Nari Jibon: End Violence Against Women
25th of November was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. To mark the day Nari Jibon bloggers signed the UNIFEM petition "SAY NO to violence against women". Nari Jibon bloggers joined the campaign with Take Back the Tech to take action on ending violence against women.
Rising Voices Seeks Micro-grant Proposals for Citizen Media Outreach
Rising Voices, the outreach arm of Global Voices, is now accepting project proposals for microgrant funding of up to $5,000 for new media outreach projects. Ideal applicants will present innovative and detailed proposals to teach citizen media techniques to communities that are poorly positioned to discover and take advantage of tools like blogging, video-blogging, and podcasting on their own. Applications are due no later than Sunday, January 18, 2009. The five selected grantees will be announced in early February.
Voces Bolivianas: Engaging Local Stakeholders For Wider Outreach
On the 14th of December 2008 the ‘Bolivia Webprende’ (Meet of the Web Entrepreneurs in Bolivia) took place in La Paz. Many cyber activists of Bolivia participated in the event along with some web entrepreneurs and discussed about new ideas and suggestions, shared knowledge and tried to identify opportunities for collaboration between cyber activists and Web businesses. The Rising Voices grantee Voces Bolivianas project was one of the co-organizers of the event.
Serbian Web Journalism School: Creating Future Trends in Journalism
Ljubisa Bojic and the Serbian Journalist Association are providing training to experienced and novice journalists in New Media and Social Web in an web journalism school in Belgrade, Serbia. The idea is that these journalists will learn to use new technologies like blog, photo and video blogging, podcasts etc. and apply them in their everyday work creating future trends in Serbian journalism. Rising Voices has provided micro-grant to support the outreach work from the second round of workshops.
A Campaign for Suso
A project nine months in the making, the bloggers from HiperBarrio are organizing a festive event this Saturday to raise funds in order to finish their all-volunteer construction of a new house for Manuel Salvador, formerly known as "Suso Mugre".
Online Filmmakers Offer New Glimpses of Iran
Despite several unforeseen hurdles, Iran Inside Out has launched an impressive website and published two videos by Iranian filmmakers showing Tehran's underground heavy metal scene and reflecting on the prospects of peace for the country's youngest generation.
Nari Jibon Featured in Venezuelan National Newspaper Tal Cual
One of the many goals of Rising Voices is to help facilitate conversation between countries in the so-called 'Global South'. Last month Laura Vidal, a Venezuelan journalist who publishes the column Blogpodium for the national daily Tal Cual, wrote about Rising Voices grantee Nari Jibon, which is based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. What follows is an English translation of her original piece.
Methadone Programs in Ukraine: a Help to Drug Addicts or World Conspiracy
The Ukrainian foundation for drug users and HIV positive people, Drop-in-Center, celebrated World AIDS Day, by conducting a broad public awareness campaign, explaining the basics of methadone programs for injection drug users. The campaign has attracted some criticism on Ukrainain news sites, which Rising Voices grantee Pavel Kutsev responds to on his blog. Maryna Reshetnyak translates from Russian.