The Good News Blog's objective is to inspire young people who are going through a desperate and uncertain period. Inspiring interviews, mentorships and images can be used as a reference and knowledge can be shared among interviewees supporting their own life development. The plan is to interview persons without titles or college degrees but who have fulfilled their life goals and dreams with hard work and effort, like entrepreneurs, store and auto-shop owners, or salesmen.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Tegucigalpa
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
Our target audience is the Honduran youth. Our organization is already working with young people with high social risk who haven't gone to school in most cases but who have the desire for a better life. As an organization we have access to these youngster communities. They are eager to move forward but don't know how to do it, and that's why we believe that after seeing other people like them succeed, people who started from scratch and that are now at least economically independent and have achieved all this with hard work and effort, they'll get inspired. In Honduras, many people don't have access to education, which is almost considered a luxury. These are the young people we want to target with our proposal
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
In our proposal we want to present interviews with persons without education but great initiative and honest workers who have overcome many barriers to achieve their goals. Besides, we want to include tutorials on practical things people can do to inspire young people like: how to bake bread for sale, how to reuse some resources like garbage and transform it in objects to sale, how to handle a budget, etc. Also, we want to look for artists and painters who would like to share their knowledge so others can learn, and publish such interviews in local media like television channels or local radio broadcasters, or make public presentations where there is no Internet access.
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.
As an organization, we have been working in communities with social risk sharing the playful artistic methodology. We also have projects in association with other organizations that work with youngsters; therefore we believe we can reach several communities in Honduras. Walabis has a strong credibility as well as our partner organizations. We believe that with a project such as this one, we could reach even more young people without the need of high budgets, just an Internet connection or the assistance of youngsters to the interview presentations video shows where they'll have the opportunity to see other options for earning a living .
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
We want to train three youngsters – with previous amateur level – in audio and video editing. These persons should come from one of the socially risky communities and must be members of our organization. They will record, edit and update the blog with good news.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
We want to train three youngsters in online free software use, tools like Adobe Premier, Adobe Audition, Photoshop and also in updating blogs from free services like Blogger, Facebook and social networks such as YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
In our organization we have four computers with a minimum capacity for editing, so we think the resources we get from the grant should be used in buying professional editing equipment. Our organization also has friends and members with editing, directing and publishing expertise in sound who could donate their time or provide training at a low cost. We don't have the tools to capture high quality video or sound so we will also buy those with the grant money if we are elected. We have space for the trainings and broadband Internet connection. We already carry on these tasks, we are just lacking the right equipment so the sustainability of the project is assured
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
Our organization is about to start an 18-month project in South Honduras financed by Oxfan Canada. In this project, we will be working with more than 2000 youngsters from the urban and rural areas of Pespire and Choluteca which will give us access to many inspiring persons and possible donors and sponsors from organization who work in local development or small businesses who would like to participate. There are other organizations with access to mass media like local radio stations and television that we can easily contact because they are owned by partner organizations.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
One of the challenges we are expecting is Internet access since normally we will be working in updating the blog from several locations within the country. Since the idea is to do the interviews in the places we can reach, it is possible many communities we get to don't have Internet access so updating would take a while. Another challenge is training the youngsters because it could be take some time so we are ready to publish interviews so we will have to think in short term solutions like photographs or sound recordings meanwhile.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
One of the main KPIs will be the number of people visiting the blog. Another would be the amount of participants in each of the public presentations. We also think that when we get enough traffic, we could publish interviews with people who have found our blog useful. This would give us an external vision of how we are doing our job.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2013?
The proposal is that the blog has a weekly update with a video or photograph or podcast. For our organization, this would be a permanent project; we don't want to put a deadline to it. When we get enough funds to buy the right equipment, we should have it permanently open so people know they can use the information for their benefit and share it in social networks.
Detail a specific budget of up to $4,000 USD for operating costs.
It is very important for us to have the right equipment since our organization already has an audiovisual area and we have a YouTube channel. If we get this funding, we would strengthen such area. We would use free tools like Blogger, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. so there is no need to pay for hosting. The main meeting point for this project will be our headquarters.
Needed equipment:
A Mac computer for video editing: 2000 dollars
Audio zoom recorder: 400 d ollars
Sony HD video camera: 800 dollars
Transport expenses for interviews and instructors fee: 800 dollars
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
Besides Rising Voices grant, we have Hivos, Holanda and Oxfan Quebec funding. These projects allow us to keep our Internet connection active and pay our organization's personnel. Since the audiovisual area already exists but it lacks the right equipment, this project would strenghten our current funded work.
Contact name
Douglas Alonzo
Organization
Walabis , educacion, arte y ludica