Radiobubble/Hackademy will provide training on citizen media in north-east Halkidiki, an area of northern Greece at risk of wholesale environmental and social destruction due to ore mining activities developed by Hellas Gold. Its purpose is to enable local residents to share reliable information with the wider public in Greece and abroad through means that enable them to bypass the mainstream media blackout on the issues they are facing.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Ierissos (Aristotelis municipality)
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
The online presence of activists from the 16 villages of the Halkidiki mining area is limited to a handful of Twitter and Facebook users and bloggers, making them reliant on external networks for dissemination of information. The ability of this community to expose government and corporate malpractice will be a litmus test to ensure that mining activities in Halkidiki and other regions of northern Greece are adequately scrutinized
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The project aims at improving the quality and reliability of existing blogs but also to enable activists to disseminate real-time information using Twitter and related sound, image and video-hosting services (including livestreams), in particular during periods where there are fast developments on the ground such as demonstrations and random/abusive police operations.
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.
The project concept has already been presented by Radiobubble/Hackademy to the Coordination Committee against ore mining in Ierissos, which agreed to support its implementation. The Committee comprises a wide array of local associations from the Aristotelis municipality and is also in regular contact with citizen groups in other regions of northern Greece which are next in line for targeting by mining interests.
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
The project will train 25 to 30 people who will be identified by the Coordination Committee. Care will be taken to ensure that at least one resident of each village of the Aristotelis municipality attends the training. The possibility to include participants from other regions of northern Greece will be discussed by the Ierissos committee with its counterparts in Kilkis and Thrace.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
Rising Voices can ensure adequate cooperation between Global Voices, local activists and Greek citizen media such as Radiobubble to promote the dissemination of media content developed at the grassroots level on the issue of ore mining in Halkidiki.
Contact name
Theodora Oikonomides
Organization
Hackademy