We reported earlier that the Risiing Voices grantee ‘Empowerment of Women Activists in Media Techniques (EWAMT) [1]‘ from Yemen has trained 112 female activists in citizen media tools [2] in 10 workshops. The first phase has been completed with success of having 24 active bloggers [3]. The news of the completion was reported by [4] a local news agency Almotamar.net.
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On March 3, 2010 Wednesday EWAMT organized a certificate awarding ceremony at Al-Afefe Foundation in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. The project leader Ghaida'a Al Absi reports [6]:
We talked about a success story of one of the bloggers, that she got an invitation to participate in Women’s Leadership in Technology in Al-Sharja. However, she could not go there because her family won’t allow her to travel alone.
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At the end, we distributed the certificates, and the eyes of the new bloggers were shining.
[8]Taizz city. Image Via Google Map
Now the good news is that the second phase of the EWAMT project started in Taizz city [9], a major city in Yemen located at the southwestern highlands at an altitude of 1500 meters above sea level. It is located at the foothill of Saber Mountain (3070 meters) and has a dramatic setting where the roads run up and down the mountain sides. Here is a video of the city [ar]:
From an article [10] published in the EWAMT project blog, we learn about the start of the 2nd phase:
In Partnership with the National Culture Center for Youth, we trained 15 ladies on 31 March- April 1st 2010 in Taiz City. Most of the trainees were volunteers at the center, and the other were volunteers in HIV projects. It was the first time for them to hear about social networking term. In the first day we talked about the history of blogging, and they started to create accounts in blogger. In the next day, We continued the blogging. Then we discussed about google maping, Wiki, and Facebook.
In the first phase participant's group blog Thoughts of the Yemenis [11], Ebtisam Al-Mohmmdy writes [12] about the traits of many Yemenis at home, which consists of apathy and dependency on others and they show lower morale and ethics. However, when Yemenis go abroad, they become hard working and law abiding moral citizens. Al-Mohmmdy writes:
I wonder, should they not treat Yemen with love and patriotism, and sacrifice .. [..] … I hope to find an answer.