Proposals Blogs
Finalist – Cambodian Citizen Journalism Project (CCJP)
The project I'm proposing is simple. I would like to train up to 30 youth citizen journalists at a youth friendly NGO (asked not to be identified). I would like to train them 3 important things (1) blogging, Wikipedia, social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter (2) how to utilize them in a way that is relevant to their lives (3) how they can train their peers how to use them as well.
Finalist – Colombia: Traditional Knowledge for Sustainable Development – Colombian Amazon
The initiative is focused on the preservation of Traditional Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (TIEK), and to use it effectively in promoting directly sustainable land use of the riverine landscape – a place where the floodplain forests, fishes, and fertile soils have sustained local people for generations. This microgrant perfectly fits in to facilitate a training in digital media to amplify the use of TIEK in community-based ecotourism and to promote their sustainable entrepreneurship online. After the training, the people and youngsters are guided and learn by doing throughout the project.
Finalist – Mexico: The Plums, Letters and Voices in Resistance
Do a community journalism workshop in “El Ciruelo, Oaxaca” to form a community group dedicated to collecting and disseminating information to the community in their original language Mixteco using tools like blogs and twitter. Through the note, chronic, reporting, photography and Podcast, assist in the positioning of their cultural identity in the internet, create spaces where they speak about local history, traditions, culture and respect for human rights, in a municipality plagued by drug violence, racism and discrimination of indigenous
Finalist – Myanmar (Burma): Collab Space for CJs
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.
Finalist – Honduras: Good News Blog
The Good News Blog's objective is to inspire young people who are going through a desperate and uncertain period. Inspiring interviews, mentorships and images can be used as a reference and knowledge can be shared among interviewees supporting their own life development. The plan is to interview persons without titles or college degrees but who have fulfilled their life goals and dreams with hard work and effort, like entrepreneurs, store and auto-shop owners, or salesmen.
Finalist – Kenya: Girls Community Digital Desk
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. The stories will capture various issues at the community level which affects the girls either directly or indirectly.
Finalist – Cameroon: Questioning Public Authorities Through Citizen Media
The project seeks to empower survivors of the 1986 Lake Nyos Gas disaster who were resettled in make shift camps and have been abandoned there without adequate shelter, food security, health and sanitation. The project trains key members of the society and equip them to be able to bring their vital voices to the global community thereby putting government to task so they can take responsibility for their action. The project would increase a sense of empowerment of survivors since the internet is a liberating force. The project would give them access to the transformative power of the internet
Finalist – Macedonia: Wild Herbs Exchange Network
Macedonia is a country with lush nature and a large number of medicinal herbs and teas. People that live in remote villages have a natural remedy for every ailment but they have very little contact with the rest of the world. We plan to educate these people on the importance in sharing this knowledge by exchange of information and cures using the internet. We will also ask young bloggers to photograph and write about these wild herbs. This way we also produce the first eco journalists in Macedonia that can speak for people from remote villages.
Finalist – Peru: My Community Voices
To train rural settlers in the southern districts of Puno in the use of the media via Internet to document their culture, history and own news through blogs that include multimedia content, thus overcoming the digital divide (giving it a sense of technology) and the development divide, themselves creating their own presence on the Internet. This in a one-week workshop in the city of Puno, followed by an accompanying one for all participants so that they continue publishing their news and documentaries.
Finalist – Afghanistan: Kabul Beat — Far Away from War
Kabul Beat is an online magazine in two national languages of Afghanistan Dari & Pashto & English, that aims to share stories from different and undermined provinces of Afghanistan. Kabul Beat will teach 7-10 aspiring bloggers and writers from different provinces of Afghanistan who wish to write but due to financial problems and lack of access to internet can't present their writings to worldwide audience. Kabul Beat will have monthly issues and each issue will contain will have 7 blogs. The blogs will be in Dari and Pashto languages and the complete issue will be translated into English.
