Author Archives: mialy andriamananjara

Bloggers in Tamatave Come Together to Discuss Climate Change

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COP15 has seen the participation of FOKO's in real time live. Patrick has again outdone himself by participating with the non governmental organization Jade in a direct videoconferencing with Copenhagen. Patrick proposed to gather questions in advance on his blog.
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The work with Jade has started on November 21 during a day dedicated to “Tamatave youth facing Climate Change”. This was to rise awareness among Tamatave youth for climate change issues. Patrick participated as part of FOKO with other 32 youths in Tamatave. A video on this event may be seen at here

“Au programme de cette journée : visite du parc zoologique, découverte de la richesse de sa biodiversité (faune et flore) et randonnée dans la nature, durant la matinée. Après un déjeuner en plein air bien gai : projection du célèbre film documentaire “An Inconvenient Truth” présenté par Al Gore (ex-futur-Président des USA, selon ses propres mots) et sorti le 21 novembre 2006, c'est-à-dire il y a exactement 3 ans ! Et pour clôturer la journée : un débat en table ronde sur comment les jeunes participants perçoivent le changement climatique, ce qu'ils comprennent sur cet notion et sur les enjeux des négociations sur le climat à la COP 15 à Copenhague, en décembre 2009.”

“During this green day : zoo visit, discovery of the wealth of the biodiversity, nature walk during the morning. A cheerful lunch in the open and screening of the famous documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” presented by Al Gore, and out on NOvember 2006, i.e. 3 years ago exactly ! And to finish the day : a debate on how young participants perceive climate change, what they understand as climate change and the issues of the climate change negotiations at the COP15 summit in Copenhagen”.
As Patrick relates :

“Much thanks to those who helped us with their all strength such as: Alliance Française Tamatave, IEGAP, Ambatovy project, and indeed Orange Madagascar. I think without your help, we couldn’t realize our aim. Now I want to take advantage to tell you that, “With Orange Madagascar, you will feel quite alright.” But also we won’t surely forget “L’organisation International de la Francophonie (OIF)” who gave us a chance to follow what happened in Copenhagen Denmark, to ask questions, to give our opinions, and even to give our own solution about this climate change in real time. In term of video conference, it was the first time that Tamatave’s people saw from their own eyes how it works out”.

That electricity had hiccups only added spice to the exceptional event.

“Suddenly we were very sad because only five (5) minutes before our direct participation onto the discussion, there was a power cut which blocked all and that’s the reason why there was a moment when I was offline. Fortunately we were well prepared for that, and also Cop15 participants understood very well our situation. But anyway that wasn’t too long. Few minutes later everything worked very well as before. It was successfully because we could participate on the conference in real time. We finished our mission with a full joy.”

Foko Welcomes Bloggers in Sava & Antsiranana and more cultural insights

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These last weeks have seen a whirlwind of activities at FOKO : our bloggers travel, found photography clubs and celebrate their first year anniversary of blogging. FOKO also scores cooperation with like-minded activists : New York based Malagasy singer Razia Said and FOKO are now walking hand in hand in to promote conservation awareness.
FOKO is now really well represented geographically and FOKO bloggers take us on a tour of the Big Red Island . Let us start with HKambora who posts about the Sakalava expansion and the origins of the Antakarana Kingdom :

“The legend is based on a story in which King Andriandahifotsy foretold the founding of two kingdoms, the Sakalava and the Antakarana by studying astrology. The King offered a choice to his sons between gold and silver the choice would predict the future of the two branches of his family. The descendants of royal blood decided in favour of gold (Volamena) and the King predicted the founding of a great but short-lived kingdom, the Sakalava Kingdom. The non royal descendants chose silver (Volafotsy) and it was foretold that they would found a much smaller but longer lasting kingdom, the Antakarna.”
Then let us move south to the Central Highlands :
In Antananarivo, Pati is founding a photography club with support from UNICEF.

“A la clôture de l’atelier, les parents et les responsables des associations, écoles ou centres d’origine des enfants étaient invités pour la restitution et l’offre officielle d’un appareil photo pour chaque entité. En ce qui concerne les participants, après avoir bénéficié d’une très riche formation,ils vont à leur tour former d’autres enfants qui seront regroupés dans le tout nouveau premier club de jeunes photographes de Madagascar, que l’UNICEF va créer avec les 18 participants. Beaucoup d’échanges, de partages et de messages transmis, ainsi ont été les résultats de cet atelier. Mais le plus grand en est la nouvelle voie qui s’ouvre aux enfants et jeunes malgaches par le biais de l’UNICEF : l’expression par les photos.”

In Antsirabe, when ESSVA students are not enthusiastically promoting blogging, they are busy traveling. This time, they explored the photogenic island of Nosy Be and for our benefits, they post pictures and texts. Follow our island trotters here when they cover the DONIA festival.

“Il ne reste plus qu’une semaine de cours. Les étudiants en 2ème de la Filière Communication et Journalisme ont pris de l’avance sur les vacances en faisant un voyage d’études à Nosy-Be. Le cadre est le festival Donia, un plate-forme par excellence en matière de communication. L’utile et l’agréable, en somme. Mais trêve de bla-bla et laissons les photos parler.”
“We have one week of classes left. Second year students majoring in Communication and journalism go on vacation early by visiting Nosy Be. The landscape is the Donia festival, an excellent backdrop for communication. Joining pleasant and useful things. But let us stop chit chatting, pictures are worth thousands of words. “

Interview with director of communication of Donia
(ESSVA interviewed the rep of the Donia festival)


Andrikely writes about the consequences of the political crisis on farmers. Many of them used to supply TIKO, Madagascar's dairy company, which belonged to the ousted President, Marc Ravalomanana. TIKO is now encountering many hardships.

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SURPRODUCTION LAITIERE AU SEIN DES ELEVEURS AVEC DE MINIMUM PRIX

Actuellement, les éleveurs des vaches laitières rencontrent de problème de surproduction de laits dans la ville d’Antsirabe et surtout dans la région de Betafo (26 km à l’ouest de la ville) . La plupart de ces paysans dépendent de la collection de l’industrie TIKO qui est le principal producteur de produits à base laitière mais le TIKO n’a reçu depuis le début de la crise parce que leurs consommateurs ont diminué par des différentes raisons à cause de la situation actuelle. Par conséquent, les laits doivent être vendus par bouteille dans la rue avec de prix plus bas, pour éviter la perte total des éleveurs , ils les transformés en yaourt de maison si bien qu’il y ait beaucoup de produits vendus sur la rue et la consommation diminue de jour en jour ; le problème, c’est le lait devient inutile si on ne réussit pas à le vendre en même jour .Le lait peut être transformé aussi en fromage (transformation informelle par les éleveurs ) mais son prix n’est pas relatif à la quantité de laits à transformer .Donc, ces paysans doivent chercher tous les moyens pour gagner de revenu à partir de leur propre production.”

“Dairy overproduction amongst farmer with minimal prices”
Today farmers who rise dairy cows meet overproducion problems in the city of Antsirabe, and especially in the Betafo region (26 kilometers west of the city). Most of these farmers depend on the collect that TIKo does, as it is the principal producer of dairy products, but consumers have reduced their intake since the crisis. And so milk is sold by the bottle in the streets at the lowest cost, to avoid total loss by the farmers, they also now make home made yogurt, and there is too many of those on the streets and consumption diminishes day by day. Milk is useless if one does not sell it on the same day. Milk can also be used to make cheese (informally), but the price is not correlated to the quantity of milk to be used. So these farmers have to find any means to gain revenue based on their own production.”

Meanwhile the FOKO family keeps growing : FOKO has now a foothold (or two) in Northern Madagascar. The SAVA region and Antsiranana are now part of the FOKO network. You can follow their first steps here. Welcome to the FOKO coordinators there : Affick GASSARD and Rakotoarisoa. Please encourage our new bloggers by posting comments.
We are happy to report that three of our bloggers also celebrated their one year anniversary of blogging these last three months. From the Eastern coast, Patrick reflects on his motivations for blogging :

“Why did I start to blog?
To be frank, I don’t know. You know why? Because when Mr. Stéphane and Mrs. Valerian called me with my team from BUEC for the first time, I never even heard about that “BLOG” Then when I started and surfed around the old bloggers blog at that time, one thing came out from my mind: it’s the only one way where can I make my voice heard, the only one way to make BUEC known, the only one way to have a lot of friends in very short time, the only one way that I can listen from all around the world. That’s why I became fan of blogging.
What is the best blogging experience?
In term of experience, I got lot of from blogging but the best one is: now I get used to shut my mouth up when I heard something which I’m not sure.”

In May, Patrick introduces to us the new dynamic president of BUEC in Toamasina.

And as always, but with a special mention to Patrick, kudos to our members whose enthusiasm and consistency at blogging should be noted. We are proud of you.

Lindsay Redifer, FOKO Blog Club's First Vidcasts, the Majunga School of Journalism, the mini blogging contest, …

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We got introduced to Lindsay Redifer thanks to the Rising Voices newsletter. Lindsay is a Peace Corps Volunteer stationed in Madagascar who stayed on to teach English at Majunga's Journalism school. She also has a keen interest in citizen journalism and loves Madagascar, as she so powerfully describes in her interview by Pati . She became our Blog Club's enthusiastic tutor in Majunga, Madagascar's third city, on its western coast.

Majunga's new citizen journalists are not only showing great promise but are already realizing them. The posts are engaging, numerous and in three languages : Malagasy, French and English. Take a look at the posts, translated in English here. Subjects range from the universally controversial one of abortion, to posts dedicated to Malagasy customs. We also have a slam poet !

We want to thank Lindsay wholeheartedly for her hardwork and dedication. Words are not enough. Lindsay is now leaving Madagascar for good and we wish her greatest success in her search to do more citizen journalism related work. Mirary soa ary misaotra betsaka, Lindsay !

Lindsay and Hery, the UN Youth Club Coordinator and FBC mentor, assisted also the young but talented Nombana and Pati in editing and producing their first vidcasts. They only needed some nudging and pointers to come up with real short documentaries. One is about the life of Dominique, a child beggar in Antananarivo. Another one is about the infamous lake of Behoririka in Antananarivo, a sad case of urban pollution disaster. Both were submitted to the Film Your Issue competition.

Thanks to Lindsay, our bloggers are also getting a special column in the Madagascar English Journal, a weekly publication for educational purposes distributed to schools and sponsored by the American embassy.

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And lastly, the last FOKO Blog Club session with new bloggers was held on April 26th. A joint one again with Majunga and Toamasina blog clubs participating. This time we have put some of our confirmed bloggers, Karenichia and Patricia in charge. There was no chatrooms for diasporic bloggers to cheer on the new bloggers. But the blogosphere was still present to discuss Lapino and Dadarabe's cyberfety and to discover the new blogs.

We are working hard on providing more pictures, more podcasting and more vidcasting workshops.

We also held our first mini blogging contests. Results were announced. The winner will get a digital camera to take more pictures and make vidcasts, the others will get internet connexion, with special mentions to some very special ones who will be promoted to be mentors.

Planting trees, Cyclone Ivan and FOKO

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FOKO has resolved to strengthen our ties with the other RV grantees, learn from their experiences and apply their tips to running our workshops successfully.Between running our first vidcast workshop, planting trees with our Youth Group and organizing a commenter committee, FOKO has been busy.
One of our most enthusiastic bloggers, Avylavitra , has been rewarded with his own vidcast workshop and has also learned how to use Flickr, in particular Avylavitra has showered us with pictures from cyclone Ivan that devastated Madagascar.


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Hery, another member of the Serasera Namana Group, is planning to bring teens and will tutor them himself.

Tip1 : Knowledge transfer and giving more responsability

FOKO, now part of the Mila Soa Association, has planted trees in the region of Andranovelona with the Namana SeraSera Group. We also have our first own vidcast from this outing : a 4 mn video on bliptv with two of our FOKOSters, Tantely and Hery, showing us, what else, how they planted a tree.

tip 2 : Outdoor activities

We are still a blogosphere inclusive strategy : we now have a commenting committee! More seasoned bloggers who are encouraging others by following up others with their own tips and comments.
This strategy has so far been successful : our top blogger, Avylavitra, is now averaging about five comments per post. He has also pledged to bring bloggers to the workshops and has been rewarded to take a more leading role in the workshops. We are hoping this approach will generate more involvement and ownership from the FBC members.
Five posts have been chosen by sipagasy , a seasoned blogger, to be translated into English. They are now available on the Foko Blog Club website.

tip 3 : Include the blogosphere, start debates.

tip 4 : Stimulate creativity with the best blog contest.


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In addition, FOKO is planning on expanding. We are still planning to be in Madagascar’ second largest town next week : Toamasina, despite the cyclone, (great coverage with videos posted by Avylavitra , although plans are subject to changes depending on safety issues. Bridges and roads are reported to be in catastrophic shape.

We are exploring the idea of “Green” blogging. Environmental issues have long been at the center of FOKO's concerns. Choosing environmental themes as subjects for our next blogging workshops was but a natural step to take, as well as spreading to other locations : Tantely and Steph will launch the Toamasina edition on 24th.

tip 5: Blog with a common theme.