From simple blogger to citizen journalist, We do whatever it takes

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Foko has just celebrated its 6 months of Blog Clubs and it was an occasion to salute the effort and energy all our coordinators and sponsors are putting in this great project. From the ones who spend amountless hours on networking looking for funds and contacts to the true heroes who are committing 200% of their energy in Madagascar and of course to our family, the Rising Voices community : THANK YOU !

We managed to recrute more than 20 bloggers from Mahajanga to Toamasina and integrate more and more communities. Since October 2007 we asked them first : “why do you want to join the Club?” . These are the answers : “I'd like to meet new friends”, “Will Malagasy from abroad read my blog?”, “It's a chance to improve my English”, “I want to write short stories”, “I want the world to know more about Madagascar”,…

From FBC-Majunga

As you already realized, our scheduled FBC workshops require improvisation (since the connexion gets cut off too often) and ingeniosity (because we're always short on money, tutors, cameras and posts!). For 6 months, we teached the basics of blogging and each member was free to come back on the next session, blog outside the hours and join our many outdoor activities. When the Flickr and video sessions started, the bloggers proved their skills and commitment. Each day you can find new images posted and oftenly commented by Lomelle, Poupoune, CPO groups on our Flickr album. With the undergoing contests, you'll find more videos on our Youtube and Dotsub pages . When Lindsay met Stéphane in Antananarivo this week-end, our coordinators helped Pati and Nombana (our FYI contest participants) for their videos which needed Hery‘s from Namana Serasera support for today editing session.

Lindsay and Pati after a very tiring but passionate video workshop

But the greatest achievement remains in everyone's tenacity to inform and share more and more news and stories when fighting tough conditions in Madagascar. Power or internet connection cut offs happen more than 10 times a day in the provinces; many of our members are still in high-school and university students and have exams ; difficulties to keep on blogging with the high rates of internet connexion ; uploading time require amountless hours; etc. To show them our appreciation and our interest in their work, we invite everyone to welcome our members from Mahajanga by posting a cheerful comment on their brand new blogs !

Which fruits and vegetable look more tasty : Toamasina or Mahajanga ones ?

When members take control of the Foko Blog Clubs

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The collaboration with the Namana Serasera group since October 2007 turned into a very enriching experience for both parts but mostly for us at FOKO. Our very young organisation has always received the inconditionnal support from their very energetic and socially involved members. They invited us at their annual tree planting event so we could learn more on environmental actions but they didn't limited themselves to blogging only. We all know about Avylavitra’s achievements in Citizen Media but what must be known is his perseverance to share his knowledge to every new bloggers. Hery is now tutoring the students from UNIC Club (UN Informational Center where he works) and has accepted without hesitation in helping the students competing in the Film your Issue Short Film International Contest. This reportage from the Open Door Days at Lycée Jules Ferry on March 14th by the CPO Julf group proves their talents and interest in social causes .

Our Flickr is updated every 2-3 days now!

The blog posts since their first workshop portray Malagasy youth with a very mature but creative spirit :

Karenichia who is now posting twice a week in Malagasy, French and English (you can watch her thanking the Rising Voices on this video) shares her opinions on society, education and of course boys.

Qui reste-t-il à épouser? Nobody left to marry
Nobody is perfect but everyone has his ideal husband or wife. Who doesn't know this? I was having a discussion about this with a girlfriend and we discovered that the ideal husband we dream about is a rare specie in exctinction. read more here

Pati who is also part of the group who made the CPO Julf video exposes her ideas on her personal blog:

Les jeunes de nos jours Kids the days

Who are they?
I think they're human beings who don't think themselves as children anymore but not ready to act as elders ! There is no age range to define who can be young and it's up to us to see and sense who can be and who cannot!(…) So be careful young people! We are the young of everyday but also of tomorrow so don't make a bad start by wasting your future. read more here

Ahasintsoa, Xylone, Kafoumette and Majy have already received cheerful welcoming from the blogosphere who has been regurlarly posting comments and tips to support our youth group.

The titling also refers to the extraordinary work of Toamasina group. Since Stéphane could't make his monthly trip for the pictures and video training (the 2nd step of FBC ), they insisted in taking their reserved places at the cybercafé ! Poupoune diligently formed 2 friends of hers to blogging and despite the very bad connexion they were able to discuss with their new peers from Mahajanga on Skype. FBC-Mahajanga is a group of talented future journalists .This media is very new to them (the serious side of blogging), they took time to know more about the Malagasy blogosphere and discover the wonders from FBC-Tana and FBC-CPO groups. Lomelle managed to publish her first post during this short workshop and Faliniaina exposes his views on racism. With only a little training but a lot of (online) support, the voices from the provinces came straight from their hearts.

Lomelle : Slam for Life

My name is Lomelle I am 18 and in 2nd year at Mahajanka school of journalism. I'm fond of litterature but what I like the most is Slam poetry. As far as I can remember I always love reading. (…) Freedom of speech : Where no words is forbidden , no topic is tabou. Freedom to boo a slammer when his text displeases us, freedom to applaude when we're fond of a text. Freedom to proclaim out loudly what we keep in our hearts. read more here

Faliniaina Racial and economical discrimination

How come we still have to talk about this? But it is the reality here in Madagascar. The vazaha (foreigners) come here and see us as we were the poor people who have to be inferior. (…)Myself, I've studied, and worked with vazaha in our own country and this is the feeling I have at this moment. We live under the era of economical colonisation. We have the wealth we're not able to exploit, how will we manage do get out of this dead-end? read more here

Stay tune for more pictures and videos on

New Voices from the Malagasy Provinces and High School Students.

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Keeping up with their blogging activities was certainly a struggle last week for Foko members as Madagascar was still coping with the aftermath of cyclone Ivan ( flooding and humanitarian crisis). Nevertheless, media workshops were still held at the usual location for volunteers to expand on their perspectives over the post-cyclone events. Young Stephy expresses her fear over her house not holding up to the strong gusts of wind while avylavitra illustrated the damages caused by the flood with photos and videos that were re-utilized on many majors digital news media.
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Considering the circumstances, it was quite amazing that the media workshops were extended to new communities. First, despite frequent black-outs due to the bad weather in the port of Toamasina, the first media workshop was given to volunteers from a local mining company. 4 new bloggers (vazahabe, lafatra, christian and Luc) joined the Foko blogging community. We have hefty expectations for our new bloggers. Toamasina is the largest port of Madagascar and its economic center. For more on the city of Toamasina, here is slideshow summarizing the city and the region.
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Additionally, a workshop in a new city, Mahajanga, is planned for the coming week, with the help of members of the School of Journalism taught by Lindsay Radifer. Remarkably, Toamasina and Mahajanga are about 800 km apart. Internet connection was proven to be scarce in cities outside of Antananarivo.In fact, 80% of bloggers reside in Antananarivo. It is therefore important to open these cities to digital media.

Still, the highlight of the past week was to witness the enthusiasm of new bloggers from the JJ Rabearivelo high-school. The workshop was conducted in collaboration with the United Nations Club ( CPO) led by Hery (interview: Youth and ICT). They already posted very intriguing posts about the unemployment problem for students and the loss of respect for the elders in Madagascar.

Here is a video of the media workshop with the high-school students with english subtitles.

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Here are a few excerpts from the new bloggers:

“There are guys who have licence in Laws, Management and other subjects but they still cannot find jobs and end up working as bus drivers or other small jobs. This is very sad.”

“In the past, young Malagasy people used to obey and respect the raiamandreny. They held a very important place in the society and to this, they proved to be trustworthy and honest. The youth trusted in their intelligence; they gave good advices to those who needed it, they were fair in judging civil quarrels,.. there was no use defying them because most of the time they were right. Nowadays, the soatoavina malagasy disappears little by little and we can see it in our everyday life.”

From Popoune:

“In Madagascar, women are still dependent of their husbands. Without their consent, they can do nothing and this is still very common. For example : if a woman reach a certain level of education, she is still obliged to ask her husband's permission, even if it has something to do with her own well-being first.”

About CPO or Club pour l’ONU: this club exists in many schools in Madagascar (high and middle schools) for many years now. For Lycée Jules Ferry in Faravohitra, the club started in 1998 and we’re celebrating its 10th anniversary this year

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.

Bringing Malagasy forumists to blogging

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Traditions of improvised oral speeches, also known as “kabary“, are deeply seated in Madagascar. The orator speaks alone in front of a crowd for a long period of time using metaphors and images.
When we, at FOKO, first thought of bringing forumists (such as the members of the Namana Serasera association) to the world of blogging, we were afraid they would feel alone and intimidated when introduced to this new media. Although Malagasy internet users are already used to sharing their opinions openly in forums, they always did so while comfortably sheltered by the online community. The idea of publishing ideas on one's own and taking a personal position on each post could have understandably scared some of them.


Our team did their best to make them feel at ease and showed them the basics of blogging in each session.
This month, Hery, a tutor at the Club since its first edition in October, took the initiative to introduce our work to teenagers of the Lycee Rabearivelo in Antananarivo during an Open Day on “Development and Human Rights” hosted by the local United Nations ICT Center. Those who were interested were then invited to join the workshops . Andry, a new member of FOKO, and incidentally a seasoned Internet professional, did a wonderful job at setting up the computers and sodas at the cyber coffee Teknet. “Pro” Malagasy bloggers also showed up to help out and at the same time other overseas based bloggers connected on the chatroom and offered support and tips.

It took only one hour for the first posts to start showing up. FOKO members had not even yet mentioned Citizen Journalism and the Rising Voices tutorials translated into French (and soon in Malagasy)that spontaneously all the blogs showed they had caught on the spirit of what it means to rise ones’ voices :

13 year-old FCandy very wisely posts about the latest news from her Ambohimanarina popular neighborhood .

Hard working Sasa tells us funny stories about people she meets everyday on her way home .

Stunningly Avylavitra showcases pictures of the impact of last week's FAME cyclone which did many destructions in town …

All the “Pro” were impressed by the Virtual Kabary posted in the new blogs and continuously wrote comments to sustain the flow.

Some issues were raised : Blanche07 explained how difficult it was to find Internet connection, Pakysse wanted to learn how to embed sounds and videos into posts, and 10-year-old Miora Stéphanie needed more time. Many more bloggers-to-be were waiting for their turn in the hallway.

Respectful of the Malagasy tradition, we used a collective approach to solve the problems. FOKO will now host 2 blogging sessions per month instead of one, more friends from the Namana Serasera group will attend the workshops, Tantely will teach the art of vidcasting, more tutors will volunteer to help out (and meet new friends) and the blogosphere will keep on commenting !!!

As FOKO says it in its slogan : It takes a village to rise an idea.