The project is a citizens’ journalism training for 15 leaders to trumpet the stories of people’s courage and hope from the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan, the oil spill and government negligence. This aims to enhance our community radio program in empowering the affected communities of Estancia, Iloilo in rising above and speaking out loud our advocacy for environmental, economic and political justice. The project will amplify our people’s stories of rising up in multi-media forms and will be posted online through face book, You Tube or blogs.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Estancia, Iloilo
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
I will be working with the communities greatly affected by Typhoon Haiyan in the Municipality of Estancia, Iloilo.Having this proposal is a product of my daily engagement with the affected communities for the past five months. We wanted our real stories to be heard not the false stories told of big government and private bureaucrats about them.
We started our community radio this April but don’t have strong presence online due to our limited capacity for volunteers and concerted effort using cyber space for our advocacies and our demand for justice. Computer literacy is approximately 20% of the whole population. As an activist and a journalist, I want to develop more citizen’s journalist and social activist volunteers focusing on social media and social networking online.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
I will be joined by my fellow local activists who are also citizen’s journalists engaged in advocacy work in Estancia, Iloilo in implementing the project.
Christopher Limos – https://www.facebook.com/towfie?fref=ts
Mary Grace Lobaton- https://www.facebook.com/mglobaton?fref=ts
Rhea Ogoy – https://www.facebook.com/rea.ogoy?fref=ts
Wilson Balingit –
Since we are all working full time in our advocacy work in empowering affected communities, relief and rehabilitation projects we need more volunteers to join us focusing on citizen’s journalism and activism online. Thus, we can have a pool of volunteers assisting our need to amplify our voices, especially the voices of those communities that deserve to be heard.
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The content is the voices of the people rising from being victims of Typhoon Yolanda to being activist for economic and environmental justice. These are voices of hope to rise above devastation and despair.
The participants will produce 3-minutes short video film, feature short stories ( 500 -1000 words), news stories and photos depicting the struggles and hopes of the women, children, men, elderly, fisher folks, and small entrepreneurs about their struggles and hopes from Typhoon Haiyan devastations.
They will post these stories online with their blogs, Facebook and You Tube accounts.
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 working in close partnership with the following organizations that we organized to help in organizing the Typhoon Haiyan and oil spill affected communities of Estancia. These organizations are: National Union of People’s Lawyers, KARAPATAN – Human Rights Alliance, Alliance of Health Workers, Task Force Buliganay- Estancia, Promotion of Church People Response ( PCPR)-Panay and Gabriela –Panay.
We will be planning to work in partnerships with the following media organizations for this project. These are Visayas Hub of Citizen’s Journalists, College of Mass Com – St Paul’s University – Iloilo, Department of Social Work – Central Philippine University, Philippine Daily Inquirer – Iloilo Correspondent and The Freeman – Iloilo Correspondent.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
There will be 15 participants from the youth, women and teens who have the commitment to undergo the training and had joined our advocacy in demanding economic and environmental justice due to Typhoon Haiyan and government’s neglect.
After the training, I will closely work with them as mentor and develop more skills training assistance in amplifying our voices online through face book, blogs and You Tube and other social media networks. On the whole, they will be our online media team of our advocacy for environmental justice and disaster preparedness of the community and of our weekly community radio program “Pulse of the Town” as correspondent and in charge of online development.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
I will be sharing my expertise about citizen’s journalism and my team partners will focus on digital photography and video journalism using mobile phones and digital camera for documenting their stories.
Mobile phone is primarily the appropriate technology in the community since almost all of the residents have mobile phones as our system of communication. Mobile phones have several functions as camera and video recording. Through mobile phones, everyone is accessible and data can be easily collected. To quickly spread and amplify our voices to the world, mobile phone is our first line of communication for our online journalism.
This way, we can relay our real situation to the national and international community. We can successfully rise up from the wrath of Typhoon Haiyan.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
We will be working on a workshop room which we are going to rent. Everybody will have with them their mobile phones, 2 laptop computers and ADSL internet connection. We will have 2 cameras. There will be tables, chairs, whiteboard and LCD projector for the lectures.
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?
Our family is a local in the community and we are helping the people who are worst hit by the oil spill. We organized a volunteer team working in the community organizing the victims, providing relief and early recovery assistance, legal assistance to the class suit against the NAPOCOR, a government corporation owner of the Power Barge 103.
Being an award-winning citizen’s journalist of World Pulse and a human rights activist, I feel the urgency to share my knowledge and experience and develop more citizens’ journalist echoing the voices of the underrepresented and underprivileged to the world. I want to help empower the people of Estancia rising up from being victims to activist for disaster rights and social change through online journalism.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The main challenge that I have to face is the harassment of the local government to the group. But, I feel confident that we can handle the situation through sustain mentoring and the support of the lawyers, media and the community. Though, it would not be easy but we have to go through with it for the success of our advocacy.
Another challenge is the sustainability of some participants to produce articles and posting it on line. This requires a through and intensive guidance on our part to maintain the composure of the group. We could come up with more training on skill development and enhancement input on our advocacy to keep the fire burning in their hearts. This also requires financial capability which we could come up with more sustainable funds.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
Success means that the participants were able to finish the training and have their work done. They are inspired to do their work voluntary and come up with stories, post it online at the minimum of every week and a maximum of daily in Facebook, You Tube and in our community radio program.
Also, the participants were being able to come up with their own mechanics how to sustain their groups and invite more others to join.
In effect, the voices of the Typhoon Haiyan and oil spill affected community will be heard globally in which the mainstream media will take notice of it compelling the government to response to the demand of the victims turned activists.
The global community will give more support to the people morally and financially thus, we could continue the project.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
1. Social Preparation – May 2014
a. Identification of the participants – May 2014
b. Orientation of the Participants – May 2014
c. Module Preparation – May 2014
d. Preparation of the venue, trainers and other logistical needs
2. Training – June 2014
3. Evaluation 0f the Training – June 2014
4. Follow Up Mentoring – July –December 2014
5. Posting of articles online
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Computer – 500
Workshop – 800
Internet Access : 100
Camera – 300
Coordinator – 500
Travel – 300
TOTAL $2,500
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
I would expect the support to help us recommend media networks that could help us amplify our voices. Mentorship to help us improve our work.
Contact name
Hope V, Hervilla
