Proposals Citizen Journalism
Finalist – Youth Stories from Bhutan's Maturing Democracy
College-aged youth involved in Media Clubs will be trained to act as citizen journalists by producing audio podcasts. These podcasts will educate Bhutanese about democracy, explore ways to engage citizens in community problem-solving, and cover stories from Bhutan's second-ever national elections during summer 2013. Our organization will then create an online hub where all these stories will be posted and distributed to local radio stations. Given the freshness of Bhutan's democracy, all citizens – especially youth – require opportunities to better understand and engage in democracy.
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 – Hungary: Stories of Passersby (Járókelők Történetei)
Our website is called Jarokelo.hu; the name means ‘passerby’ in the Hungarian language. On the website Budapest (Hungary) citizens can report problems with photos to their local municipality. We plan to introduce an Android mobile application to the website to make the submission of the complaints easier, as the easiest way to take and send photos should be with a mobile device which is always with the ‘passersby’. We also would like to hold two workshops for journalists, bloggers and citizen journalists to help the creation of local stories based on the complaints sent through Jarokelo.hu.
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 – 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 – Greece: Citizen Journalism Against Ore Mining in Halkidiki
Radiobubble/Hackademy will train 25 residents of northern Greece on the development of citizen media. This will enable the protest movement against ore mining in Halkidiki to bypass the media blackout on issues faced by locals and to challenge the image of this struggle in corporate media, in order to inform the rest of the country of the political and financial scandal, slow-motion environmental disaster and excessive police brutality that have come to rule people's lives. The 4-day workshop will be organised around a planned rally in order to include real-life coverage of a protest event.
Finalist – Uganda: Community Reporters’ Hub and Clinic
Acholi subregion has been ravaged by a Civilwar led Joseph Kony. Defined by massive killings,abduction & other forms of human rights violation. With the withdraw of Kony ,Surviving victims of his heinous hostilities are now returning to their homes hauling a multitude of untold moving stories; Stories of shattered dreams and uncertain future. Community Reporters’ Hub & Clinic is where returnees wil gather & get free professional hands‐on training on how to use small digital video&Photo cameras, Audio‐ recorders, the internet, basics of news writing, editing, bloging, storytelling
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 – Nigeria: Addressing Iwerekhan Environmental Concerns with Social Media
With the long history of oil extraction in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria and the environmental pollution and loss of livelihoods this instigates, documentation of impacts as experienced by the local people has become very necessary. We see a profound opportunity to harness the social media platforms for training/Workshops giving a voice to the marginalized Niger Delta communities and to push oil companies & government to be transparent in their dealings with them.This project seeks to harness the social media phenomenon to give a voice to these historically marginalized people in the society
Finalist – Zimbabwe: Promoting Citizen Journalism in Chitungwiza
We have initiated an online news platform with URL http://www.chitownews.com. The platform uses the concept of citizen reporting whereby citizens play an active role in the gathering, documenting and disseminating of news and events occurring in their communities. We therefore seek to promote the concept of citizen journalism/reporting among the young generation of Chitungwiza. This will be done through training and skills development workshops to sharpen their awareness on the concept of citizen reporting, new media and use of digital tools in amplifying their voices.
