Seven Sisters Social project will enable citizens in North-East India and Sikkim to tell their stories to the world via mobile phones. The technology would simply use an Interactive voice response system to create a mobile reporting network for North-East India. Through Citizen media reporting participants will be empowered to share their stories over the phone and use the platform.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
North-East India
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
India has a highly segregated national media. While the ‘big’ media is busy in its race for TRPs, the smaller local media has little to no chance of reaching a wide national audience and addressing important regional issues. The North East region of India has suffered much because of this. The issues of this region remain within the boundaries of the states and never reach the other cities.The project bridges the gap n allows people to speak out
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The project will work on a participatory-citizen-media model. Users will send their stories of community organising, traditional festivals, culture– every day. These contributions, on an array of topics, will form the very basis of the opinion generation and content creation on the platform. The output will be short 5-6 minutes of individual stories being relayed over the IVR.
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.
Youth Ki Awaaz will feature this project on its website. We already have important contacts across the Northeastern states like Mizoram Chakma Development Forum, Campaign for Peace and Democracy in Manipur and youth groups in Darjeeling and Sikkim. We will also partner with citizen journalists to assist us in training people in the reporting and recording their stories.
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
We expect to train 100-120 people over a period of 6 months and concurrently uploading the content on the site. We will working with the different youth groups and through their networks we will be seeking participants from the communities. We will also be using traditional media like word of mouth, sms, local fairs to inform people about the project.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
We will need Rising Voices help in network with similar groups around the world. Mentor the project coordinators, provide equipments for the project, provide reading and training materials on citizen journalism. We will love to get our work featured on Global Voices network and the site. We also plan to document every part of the project in terms of visual storytelling and additional help will be required here.
Contact name
Shibayan Raha