Kwifon online is a project that will enable the secret masquerade ‘kwifon’ of 3 villages (Bafut, Mankon and Nkwen) of the Ngemba tribe in Cameroon speak on internet social media for the first time. This venture is expected to consolidate the bond between the traditional rulers and their people residing in cities around the world, increase use of Ngemba languages online and facilitate resource mobilization for village development.
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Bafut, Mankon and Nkwen Villages in NW of Cameroon. Coordination will be done from the CASD office in Bamenda, capital NW Region.
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
After training the kwifons on the use of internet social media, they will be expected to create email, facebook and twitter accounts. The online space will be used to share communiqués, post village development projects and crowdsource funds. The city dwellers will be opportuned to respond to their kwifon (some for the first time since verbal communication with the kwifon demands traditional rites.) and participate in village development.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established that will contribute to the success of the project.
Our organization, CASD, already has a working relation with the kwifons of the target villages. 1stly, we have volunteers and staff who are title holders in these villages and have fulfilled the rite to meet face-to-face with the kwifon. 2ndly, as indigenous people, we will approach the kwifons in their local languages and justify the project as community members. 3rdly, we penetrated the kwifon of Bafut and Mankon in another project.
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
We plan to train 21 participants (7/village). The kwifon reserves the right to select the participants but we will recommend the inclusion of the palace communications officer, the head of village development council, and a young prince. After the training, we will work with the participants to host their microblogs.
To sustain the project, we plan to provide laptops and wireless internet modems to each kwifon. M&E will be followed online.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
We believe in continuous learning and will appreciate if Rising Voices can offer us professional mentorship specifically on justifying Rising Voices microgrants, designing strategic tweets and advance security management of online space.
Organization
Cameroon Agenda for Sustainable Development (CASD)
Twitter URL
2 comments
This is a wonderful project. I can imagine what it will mean to have the masquerade online. Masqueraders are always too primitive and absent on any social media. it will be a welcome innovation which have the power of replication in most parts of sub-saharan Africa.
The voice of the kwifon online is really a rising voice.