“Buluba Speaks” is for Training lepers on how they can express themselves using podcasts. These podcasts will cover stories and explore ways of reuniting these people with their families and the community after conducting training workshops in live broadcasting, recording and editing of podcasts. We will then create an online site where all these stories will be posted and distributed to local radio stations and shared with the global community. Historically Lepers have been rejected by the community and therefore their voices need amplification using traditional and modern media.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
MAYUGE DISTRICT
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
Our project focus is to reunite lepers at Buluba National Leprosy Referral Center in Mayuge, Uganda with their families and communities using traditional and modern media. These lepers have been kept in isolation for many years, underrepresented and stigmatized by the community. In addition, some of these lepers have continued to live in the hospital even after discharge for over 40 years for fear of rejection and stigmatization by their families and the community due to disfigurement caused by the disease; they are beggars and very poor. This hinders the possibility for access and use of digital and virtual media, as well as the right to communication and expression. None of the lepers own computers or have access to the internet, and the majority are not familiar with these tools.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Nakintu Shamim http://www.facebook.com/shamim.nakintu.94
Tulilaba Esther http://www.facebook.com/esther.tulilaba
Namajja Sarah http://www.facebook.com/sarah.namajja
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
Project Participants will be trained and encouraged to produce two kinds of podcasts:
(1) Educational stories about their current state of health, poverty, discrimination, lack access to communication;
(2) Edutainment Features like poems, drama, songs from their culture and current situation. These productions will be recorded, edited and shared with the local and global community through downloading to mobile phones memory cards, production of CDs and diffusion in social networking sites. This will help them socialize with the community using media hence making their voices visible.
What technologies and digital tools do you plan to use in the trainings?
Describe the connections that you or your organization have already established or plan to establish that will contribute to the success of the project.
We are the only organization that has established connections and pioneered to train lepers bring out their voices to their families and communities using podcasts. The established connections that will contribute to the projects’ success are the local FM radio stations – APEX FM and its Busoga Media Institute who have been providing support in the provision of training in the skills of recording and editing of programs to project coordinators, and will now provide support in training the project beneficiaries. The hospital will provide the training space. We will also make contacts with other local radio and TV stations and other leper communities to share experiences and lessons learned.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
We have planned to train approximately 400 lepers still hospitalized and those discharged. We will then travel across the country to other leper communities to train and help them plan their podcast series, review the podcasts and then post them radio and online. We have already surveyed members of the leper community about the possibility of podcast training and they welcomed the opportunity. While the focus of this project is to link communities and families with lepers, the podcasting skills and knowledge will be sustained through the hub and spoke model where each leper discharged from the hospital and accepted in the community will be asked to transfer the knowledge to other lepers in their respective communities.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
Equipments to be used are digital video cameras, digital cameras, and digital voice recorders. We will be using social networking sites, virtual platforms, live broadcasting software, Adobe Audition software for recording and editing, laptops and a multi-media projector to demonstrate what needs to be done and also show some examples of the expected outputs. While in the process of compiling the videos and photos, we will assist the leper’s in creating a Facebook page so they are able to see some tangible outputs of their efforts in this project.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
The workshops will take place at hospital facility in Buluba – Mayuge district. At the facility, there is an enclosed physical space and an open-air space where the outside live broadcasting radio programmes will be held. In each of these spaces, there are seats for approximately 60 people, electricity where we can charge recorders and laptops, conduct trainings and show sample podcasts. The planned activities will take place in these spaces within the hospital grounds, which includes the computer lab (with projector, 3 computers with internet connection); and the local FM radio stations – APEX FM will provide us with space for live Broadcasting.
What is your current relationship with the community with whom you plan to work? What makes you the most appropriate individual or organization to implement this project?
We are the first organization in Uganda which has pioneered to train and empower lepers to use both modern and traditional media as a way of reuniting with their families and communities. And as a project leader after doing my Bachelors in information Technology at Busoga University in the same area I found necessary to be socially responsible enable lepers express themselves.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The primary challenges that we foresee for this initiative is that some participants may not be able to use some of our implements like computers, microphones etc as they lack some or all of their fingers which they lost due to the disease. In order to mitigate this challenge, we have planned to hire personnel at the hospital facility help us carry out the project’s desired activities. Additionally, frequent power cuts can slow down training and limit access to computers and other pedagogical equipments. In order to mitigate this, we ensured that the rooms in which we will hold the trainings are equipped with generators.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
Our participants’ willingness to attend trainings and engagement at all levels throughout the project and their effectiveness and confidence of implementing what they have learnt and how the message is accepted by the local and global community through listener ship and social networks will be the benchmark for our success.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
Consultation, Orientation & Training Workshops:
1 June – 31 July 2014
– Registration of project participants
–training on how to use the digital equipment and PC
– Interviewer skills – interviewee on-camera skills
Story development – story focus, concept and scripts Project Implementation:
1 August 2013 – 31 January 2015
–Video Shooting
– Photo Shooting
– Camera/Photo – storyboard, photo editing & file management
– Video Editing – basic video composition & editing – Audio/Music
– Audio recording & editing
– Presentation
– Presenting final output to community online and radio
Uploading of Videos online – Storage/Archive Mentoring and Follow-up
1 February – 30 April 2015
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Consultation, Orientation & Training Workshops(Stationery & Materials, Generator fuel, Communication, Internet) = 570 US Dollars
Project Implementation (Materials, Generator fuel, Communication, Internet) 850
Equipment: (One Digital video camera = 400 US Dollars, One Digital Camera = 200 US Dollars, two Digital Voice Recorders = 200 US Dollars
Project Coordinator Costs (Travel, lodgings, & meals) = 200 US Dollars
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
We request Rising Voices to help us expand our project through its networks so that we can share experiences with groups of similar interests in the local and global community as a way of amplifying the leper’s voice.
Contact name
BAGUMA ANDREW