This project is aimed at promoting the voices of young girls born with HIV through online media. The project will train 20 young girls between the age of 10-19 years on leadership skills and basic journalism skills.The girls will then take lead in writing their own stories to inspire, and advocate for their rights through social media. Their stories will be published on a common blog that the girls themselves will be in charge of updating.
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The participants will create peer reviewed articles sharing their fears, experiences, dreams and aspirations, challenges, uploading their photos and artwork. The content will be geared towards demystifying HIV as a disease and reducing stigma and discrimination within the online community.It will also held improve self esteem and confidence of these girls. The stories will then be published and shared through a common blog and website
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 are collaborating with youth groups of young people living with HIV, the National Coordinating body for HIV programs in Kenya through the Constituency AIDS Control council. The project is part of a wider project for reaching young people born with HIV by their peers. The project has been self funded so far and has been able to mobilize 120 young girls living with HIV in the slums of Nairobi
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
The project will train 20 girls, ten at a time who will then collect stories from other girls during group therapies, pediatric sessions and produce articles. The project will establish a community digital desk where the girls will be meeting to publish their articles with the support of a peer facilitator. The girls are part of children support groups that meet monthly to share and help each other on coping strategies.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
The program so far has been self funded. A group of young people living with HIV have been mobilizing their peers meeting in their guardian houses to share and support each other. They are part of Big Heart Organization volunteers who reach out to their peers on a regular basis to share their HIV knowledge with the rest and encourage them to adhere to their medication and improve on school performance
4 comments
‘Big Heart Indeed’. Story telling is a genre as old as human kind. It offers solace, counseling, keeps history, relieves stressed and shares ideas, inspirations etc. People living with HIV deserve care and attention. This fora will enabled them have a free space for expression.
this is a cool way of dealing with issues but will they have time to update? do you have a schedule on how this things are done?
This is so inspiring. Keep up Big heart