Latest posts by David Sasaki
Neighbourhood Diaries’ Open Box of Poetry
Many of the same Calcutta-based youth who were trained as citizen journalists in the Neighbourhood Diaries project are also featured in the most recent issue of Kalam's annual anthology of poetry, "Open Box", which as been made available here as an eBook.
Neighbourhood Diaries: Training Citizen Journalists in Calcutta's Marginalized Communities
Neighbourhood Diaries, a pilot project of the local NGO Kalam, is training marginalized youth in Calcutta's working class neighborhoods how to become citizen journalists. Through their poems and interviews we discover both the depressing and the delicious in Calcutta's Bowbazar neighbourhood.
One Blogger's Determination to Help Baby Kamba in Madagascar
Diana Chamia, an 18-year-old journalism student who was taught how to blog in a Foko workshop in Mahajanga, first met one-year-old baby Kamba when she accidentally missed her busstop and was forced to walk. Over the next few months she and her blog would play an integral role in helping Kamba grow up to lead a normal life.
HiperBarrio in Campus Party
The ConVerGentes project of HiperBarrio made their way from Medellín to the capital city, Bogotá, at the end of June to attend Campus Party, one of the Spanish-speaking world's largest technology conferences. Organizing the trip required the participation of all involved, but as we see, it was well worth it.
Voces Bolivianas Sends Greetings to the Global Voices Summit
Mario Duran, one of the leaders of the Voces Bolivianas team in El Alto, put together this video for the attendees of the 2008 Global Voices Summit in Budapest, Hungary. It's a great brief reminder of what the Voces Bolivianas project is accomplishing.
Travel with a Purpose
When asked "how can we help" by an audience member at the Global Voices Summit in Budapest, Hungary, Mialy Andriamananjara of the FOKO Madagascar project said it was skills not money that her project needed the most. By using social networking travel sites like Dopplr, we can help introduce highly skilled travelers to Rising Voices outreach projects. Groups like Nari Jibon in Dhaka, Bangladesh have already discovered the magic of making it work.
Public Health Projects to Use Citizen Media to Empower Community Voices
Rising Voices and Open Society Institute's Health Media Initiative are happy to announce the six newest health-focused citizen media outreach projects. We received over 110 proposals from health activists and organizations based in over 50 different countries. The six selected grantees represent the most innovative applications of citizen media tools like blogs, podcasts, and online video to help further the advocacy goals of public health organizations, and to empower the communities they work with.
Rising Voices Trailer
It has been one year since Rising Voices awarded its first round of five outreach grants to project in Sierra Leone, Colombia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, and India. Those first five grantees where then joined by five more projects in December, 2007. Today, as we are about to announce our newest round of six more citizen media outreach projects, we would like to take the time to step back and reflect on all that the first 10 projects have accomplished over the past year.
A Podcast About La Loma by HiperBarrio
ConVerGentes, the San Javier La Loma-based group of young journalists who form part of HiperBarrio, have started a podcast in Spanish. Have a listen to learn more about their community, how it is different from the rest of Medellín, and why they are headed to Campus Party.
Voces Bolivianas Featured in Vamos Magazine
Rising Voices aims not just to get new communities actively participating in the conversational web, but also to introduce their voices to mainstream media outlets so that, for once, under-represented communities are portrayed by their very residents. While the majority of the ten current Rising Voices outreach projects have been covered by mainstream media organization, Voces Bolivianas takes the prize when it comes to attraction national media attention. The citizen media outreach project, which trains new bloggers in El Alto, Santa Cruz, and other sites around Bolivia, was featured yet again this week, this time in the Santa Cruz-based Vamos magazine.
Prison Diaries Show the Reality of Life Behind Bars in Jamaica
When thinking of Kingston, Jamaica, blogging and podcasting are far from the first words to come to mind. "Murder capital of the world", sure. Bob Marley and reggae music, of course. But a cutting edge prison rehabilitation program, which teaches prisoners at a maximum security correctional institute how to blog, podcast, and even participate in Second Life? That is precisely what Students Expressing Truth (S.E.T.) has set out to accomplish with its new citizen media initiative, Prison Diaries.
[Video] Prison Diaries in Jamaica
SET Director Kevin Wallen and volunteer Caleen Deidritch explain the history, process, and objectives of Prison Diaries, a project which teaches inmates at two of Kingston's correctional facilities how to portray the realities of life behind bars using blogs and podcasts.
Carmen Paniagua from HiperBarrio
Today's video features Carmen Paniagua, the lyrical poet and songwriter of HiperBarrio. Carmen is incredibly shy, especially behind the lens of a camera, but her eyes and ears are always observing, keen observations about herself and her community which make their way into each of her poems and posts published frequently on her blog, Baúl de Letras. Carmen is also one of the authors of Nunca Será Suficiente, a group blog novel.
