Despite extremely low Internet penetration rate, more Myanmar people are starting to use social networks and become “netizens”. However, limited knowledge on privacy and access to network, especially in smaller towns, becomes a barrier for them to tell their stories to the whole country or to the world. And with all those violences happening now, only a few of those who could access Internet are influencing the country's online community. We aim to have more ethical citizen journalists in the country who could share their stories to a broader network on a timely manner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmIKU10ZTbg
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Yangon (Clone events will be through out the country)
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
Our focus will be on youths under 30 from 14 different states and divisions. The representative youths trained in our projects should set-up clone training events in order to multiply the number of people who would be educated to produce stories.
For the first round, we will choose participants who have basic understanding on how to use a computer. We will train them in Yangon and they will be equipped with skills to train others as well. For second round, we are expecting to challenge ourselves by accepting some of those with very little or no computer knowledge. With technology help on mobile that can ease users’ life, we want to bring as much as voices possible to our community space as we think those from offline should also be able to voice out regarding their local issues.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
There will be a collaborative space for them to share the stories. We will emphasise on 1) breaking news in other states and towns rather than cities which mainstream media will take more time to come up with 2) different opinion pieces regarding to local matters to share at national level 3) other location based issues such as ethnic conflicts etc. to share to the world.
We will have both main website to publish above mentioned pieces and a mobile app where shorter posts can be shared from wherever the representatives/trainees are.
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.
We have connections with local citizen journalists, mainstream journalists and photojournalists who could give us helpful hands during training sessions. In addition, we could partner with youth volunteer groups who have sub-groups in small towns and states.
We have already formed a team with developers who would build the mobile and web app and currently discussing with local journalists on detailed plan. Some experienced bloggers are willing to help as well.
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
With current plan, we will directly train about 20 participants per training session with 2~3 sessions per year. We will select trainees from various states and towns and equip them with necessary knowledge and access to tools. After they are back to their home towns, they will organise similar sessions locally with our financial support to multiply the impact. All direct and indirect trainees will be able to contribute to our collaborative space via web and mobile.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
We are considering to train the participants with essential CJ knowledge such as “Online Ethics”, “Bloggers Security”, “Citizen Media” and “Social Network Tools”. From the partnered participants, we are hoping to transfer knowledge on “Photojournalism” and “News reporting” topics.
We like to focus on mobile which will allow participants to report on timely manner. During the training, we will also share how to use a digital camera, mobile phones as citizen journalists as well as effective social media tools that will work in Myanmar.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
We are talking with a couple of potential partners who will be able to support us with their Internet Cafe location. If we conduct the training at Internet cafes (by renting whole space with minimal fee for training days), we can have ready PCs with ADSL connection. The space we are talking has about 25 desktop computers. The connection speed in Myanmar is very unstable. It can be varied from 512 kbps to 2 Mbps.
We are considering to rent a projector as well. As we have plan to have photojournalists involve as trainers, they will share their cameras to teach on how-to during the training.
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 team has a vast network with Myanmar youth volunteers who can share the news to select the participants. While some of our team members have full knowledge on citizen media and trend of online community in Myanmar, others have the experience of developing a first crowd based citizen media news site in Myanmar. In addition, as some of our members have based in foreign countries, we could be the bridge between local community and international community.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The most challenging part of our project is to keep it sustainable. Representatives from different states and divisions might become inactive after time to time if the project didn't work as expected. In order to overcome this, in first few months of the website launch, we will try to get attention form local and international readers as much as possible in an ethical way so that the volunteers can be encouraged with the readership of the site. We are considering to select only the participants who will have huge interest on citizen media so that they could contribute long term.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
For us, maintaing the volunteer representatives in each states and divisions and receiving the news/pieces from every corner of the country can be assumed as success of the project. The second goal will be the number of people who gain citizen media related knowledge from clone events. Other minor measurements should include the reliability of the site to international community and sound knowledge of online ethics and citizen media among youths who are in the network of participants.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2013?
Mid/End of July – Web and Mobile Beta version roll out | End of July/Beginning of Aug – 1st round of training begins | August/September/October – Clone events + reporting | Beginning of November – 2nd round of training | November/December/January – clone events (And reporting will continue)
Detail a specific budget of up to $4,000 USD for operating costs.
First Round of Training – Space Rental – $150, Travel expenses for participants (est. 20 pax) – $825, Handouts + Projector and other Rental – $300 | Clone events – $50 * 13 (states + divisions) = 650
Second Round of Trainging – Same cost with first round
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
We would love to hear how similar sessions were organised successfully in other countries with limited access to Internet, how to minimise the cost and how to encourage participants – especially on how to sustain the project after all rounds of training.
Contact name
Chan Myae Khine
