A segment of UNESCO's map of endangered languages (screenshot 20-2-14)
Today we are commemorating International Mother Language Day with a campaign asking people and organisations from around the world to tweet in their mother tongue. Follow the campaign on Twitter with hashtags #imld14 and #imld.
Find out more out more about the campaign on our blog, see if your mother language is listed on UNESCO's interactive map of endangered languages, and join in!
Blog Posts
Over the past week we've published a series of interviews from participants at the StoryMaker Camp held in January in Amman, Jordan, including…
- Privilege Musvanhiri of Mobile Community Zimbabwe
- Vesna Dolinšek of Lam Echaml in Tunisia
- Mustafa El-Ani of the Independent Media Centre Kurdistan
- Emad Shenouda of Al Sawt al Hurr in Egypt
We've also published a series of interviews from the Arab Bloggers Meeting, including:
- Dina El Hawary of Meedan, working with Checkdesk, which helps facilitate collaborative verification of social media.
Also from the blog…
Sunset on the Zambezi River – see our article about Everyday Africa.
Celebrating a Project Well-Mapped – As the current phase of the Mapping for Niger project draws to an end, the Rising Voices micrograntee celebrated with a ceremony at the University of Niamey.
Everyday Life Across the Continent – Everyday Africa, a collective blog using photography to break down stereotypes about Africa, focuses on mobile phone photos, representing the rising wave of technology in Africa. They are creating curriculum for teens, combatting assumptions learnt from the mainstream media about “other” people and places.
Tools
Tasharuk is a recent project to aggregate resources for social media activists which are available in Arabic. So far, we've feaured:
- Troubleshooting Guide for Community Work: select one of the 14 common problems that is closest to your situation. Then, use the reflection questions to help clarify the issue, and easily access related resources. http://bit.ly/O2OIJY
- Tips from Nawaat (a Tunisian independent collective blog) on how to hold an intensive visual short-term campaign to be able to reach wider audiences and tackle urgent matters bit.ly/1df653s
The Mapping for Niger project celebrates it's first phase: See the blog for more info.
The Dart Center is working with journalists to improve news coverage of immigrants and refugees, with a special focus on mental health. Tipsheets and videos available at: http://ow.ly/tJsNS
“Guide to Blogging for Peace and Social Change” from the Peace and Community Development Network, oriented towards NGOs and peace-builders: Available HERE
Human rights change can take many months, years and sometimes decades to materialize. It requires endurance, of the human rights defenders to continue their advocacy, while maintaining a strong support base with the general public. New Tactics ran an online conversation last week on “how to keep the momentum: how to maintain commitment & credibility” http://buff.ly/1kM17iG
Helping activists to become citizen journalists, The International HIV/AIDS Alliance has published a toolkit for reporting to influence HIV / broader health policy, programming and financing around the world: http://bit.ly/1gJvpiX
Meetups
Today (Feb 21) is the last day to register for the Alexandria Media Forum about “Media Communities In the Arab World“, April 28-30 in Egypt: http://bit.ly/1m0QczG
Tomorrow (Feb 22) is International Open Data Day! See what is happening in your region: http://opendataday.org/
Registration for the Global Media Forum starts March 17, focused on information and participation. Conference dates 30 June – 2 July in Bonn, Germany: http://ow.ly/tA0ny
The IAMCR Conference, focused on communications for sustainable rural development will be in Hyderabad in July http://bit.ly/1oV6fl8
Funding and competitions
Native American Language Preservation & Maintenance grant opportunities ($300,000 ceiling) from the ACFHHS http://tinyurl.com/oougu3d
PeaceFirstOrg Prize for a chance to win a $25,000 fellowship, recognizing people between the ages of 8-22 for their compassion, courage and ability to create collaborative change http://www.peacefirst.org/prize/
From the Everyday Africa blog post.
Submit your blog to the BOBS award - the best of the blogs, awarding online activism. Deadline March 5th, submissions can be in one of 14 languages http://bit.ly/KulHO0
SICHTWECHSEL – STADTBILDER AUS AFRIKA photography competition is focusing on the cities of Lagos, Addis Ababa, Gaborone, Kigali and Kinshasa to show another face of “Africa” compared to what is told in our mainstream media, more than poverty, AIDS and Big Five safaris. Submit your contributions here: http://ow.ly/tHyfU
Jobs and Fellowships
Paid global journalism internships with Reuters could take you to Asia, Europe or North America http://tmsnrt.rs/1jw5ivu
Working as a journalist in a developing country? Apply for a UN Journalism Fellowship in New York to report on the UN: deadline in March http://unjournalismfellowship.org
Mobile Technology fellowship with Equal Access focusing on media for grassroots community mobilization – in San Francisco http://bit.ly/1mcDPka
News
“New Makerspaces, Media Labs, & Innovation Hubs Open (or Coming Soon) Inside Three Canadian Public Libraries”
“Customers in Africa often pay 10x more than Europeans for broadband access, ITU says”
