Media for community development is a project that intends to attract development to the marginalized communities of Mpape and Gurku, by empowering the communities to share their plights, stories and history online between and among other networks and the general online community. These communities lack infrastructure and are in inhumane condition. The project intends to train selected women and youths social networking, blogging & internet.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Abuja
Describe the specific community with whom you will be working.
This project will target the women and youths of Mpape and Gurku Communities. The inhabitants of these communities are the Gbagyi people, the original indigents of Abuja. Gbagyi people have suffered marginalization both in development of their communities and their representation in government. Gbagyi people have no online platform to share their plights and stories. The gbagyi.com site has been under construction for a long time.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Stories will be told about the culture and history of the Gbagyi people, their challenges and the investment opportunities that present themselves in their communities. The people will also use this avenue to promote and preserve their culture and language. This avenue will also serve as a platform to communicate with the Gbagyi sons and daughters in diaspora and update them on the situation back home. Experiences will also be shared.
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.
Women Environmental Programme (WEP) has already established a relationship with these communities. We have been working with these communities to organize them to engage the government and other organizations to improve their infrastructure. In this regard, we have set up a body, Federation of Urban Poor (FEDUP) which is incorporated by law to mobilize for improvement in their infrastructure. We partner UN-Habitat and Miserior on this project
How many participants do you think will be involved in your project?
A total of 20 participants which will include women, youths, community Based Organizations (CBOs), traditional and religious leaders will be trained. This selection is done in a way that the diversity within the communities will be accommodated. The people trained will in-turn train others so as to ensure sustainability. The community people will be the ones writing their own content. This will be another strategy of sustaining the project.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other resources and support are you seeking for your project to ensure its success?
Women Environmental Programme would like in addition to the micro-grants that would be provided by Rising Voices, to support them in terms of capacity building of her project staff in relevant areas of online media through trainings and provision of knowledge and information sharing resources
Contact name
Priscilla M Achakpa
Organization
Women Environmental Programme