The “Blogs of political refugees from the Crimea” will include accommodation on the existing online platform owned by the applicant for a grant, blogging section of the Crimean population, which, after the Russian annexation of the peninsula left Crimea to live in Lviv (Ukraine). The project workers will describe the history of his life in Lviv and problems of adaptation. One of the objectives of the project — to help new residents of Lviv openly express their thoughts about the new city, to communicate with each other via the Internet platform, to share the experience of adaptation.
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Lviv
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
Target audience and project participants will be people who, in connection with the occupation of the Crimea had moved to the Lviv. Why are these people? Crimea and Lviv region of Ukraine are opposable. On this artificial enmity and mutual fear Russian President has built a propaganda campaign for the annexation of the Crimea. He has created in the Crimeans minds the enemy image as people of Western Ukraine and under this pretext sent troops to the Crimea, suggesting Crimeans to disconnect from Ukraine. However, after the Russian annexation of the Crimea more than 2,000 people in the Crimea, who disagree with the policies of Putin, just escaped from the peninsula to the Lviv. That migrants from the Crimea will be attracted to participate in the project as bloggers.
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Proponents also included in the number of migrants from the Crimea, so from personal experience know about all the problems.
https://www.facebook.com/RuslanYugosh?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/ekaterina.morozova.7568?fref=ts
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The project is expected to print typical blogging stories (articles, notes, photos, video). It will be unprofessional journalistic materials with plenty of their own experiences, mini-history of each of the individual or the individual family, which will bring together a common platform.
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.
Currently, the project organizers are collecting contact details of people who moved from the Crimea to the Lviv, get to know them personally. This subsequently facilitate the work on the creation of shared content.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
At the moment, from the Crimea to the Lviv moved more than 2,000 people, 800 of them are children. So in theory people who can be trained to work with the platform it is a maximum of 1,200. Of them want to work with blogs not all. In addition, not all have access to the Internet. If we evaluate the actual plans, it will be able to teach about 200-300 people.
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
New community members will be trained in such basic areas of work as YouTube, Facebook (and other social networks). Bloggers will also be trained to work with the platform on which all the materials will be collected (www.sobytiya.info). To do this, it will be a special section with a user-friendly interface. It is proposed to use this platform, as it is already popular among the inhabitants of the Crimea and migrants from the Crimea (1 million visits in March). Thus, it can provide the greatest coverage of the target audience.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
All trainings will be conducted individually. This will be done in virtual space: on Skype, E-mail, by phone, through social networks. That is the means through which future bloggers already know how to use. In addition, in some cases, the authors of the project will meet personally with bloggers to show them how to work with the platform. However, this will be exceptional cases.
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?
The authors of the project are members of the new community of political refugees to the Lviv from March 16, 2014. They personally go through the same problems as the rest of the community members. Those problems are not related to them personally, they know from other community members. In addition, applicants are professional journalists with experience of 15 years and have great experience in the organization of online communities. Their projects: vk.com / sobytiya.crimea, vk.com / travelers_notes, www.sobytiya.info, www.facebook.com/sobytiya.crimea?fref=ts and others.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
Applicants expect to face two problems. First it is laziness of many amateur authors who, despite his desire to write, can defer work. This problem will be solved with the help of constant reminders and incentives to speak before a large number of people. Second — this periodic DDoS-attacks on our platform, which orders Crimean government. However, to solve this problem, we have learned on their own, without additional assistance.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
Success of the project will be evaluated using three criteria: 1. Number of attracted bloggers. If we manage to raise about 300 bloggers, we will consider it a success. 2. The total amount of the audience of the project. We look forward to 3000 visitors per month – the first two months of the project, and at 5 000-10 000 visitors a month – in the coming months. 3. Changing public attitudes among Crimeans remaining in the Crimea, about the western Ukraine in a better way.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
The project is expected to do the following :
1. Open on the portal «Events of Crimea» (sobytiya.info) blogs section about the Lviv (until July 1, 2014).
2. Attract residents of Lviv, who moved from the Crimea, writing blogs (from July 1, 2014)/
3. Educate residents of Lviv, who moved from the Crimea, the techniques of blogging, work with photos and video equipment. Training will be carried out individually as far as attracting new bloggers (From July 1, 2014 to July 1, 2015).
4. Publishing own blog from the author of the project (from July 1, 2014 to July 1, 2015).
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
1) $ 1,200 — Compensation Project Coordinator (for work on attracting and training authors, technical work on a platform, writing the own blog, keeping the project pages on the social network Facebook).
2) $ 500 — Purchase of equipment for the project (camera with video capability or phone with the ability to put online).
3) Spending on Internet connection — $ 8 per month * 12 months = $ 96.
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
If DDoS-attacks on the site will be so strong that we can not cope on their own, need technical support specialists Rising Voices. May be will need transfer the site to a foreign server. In addition, additional advertising project on Rising Voices available platforms will be usefull.
Contact name
Ruslan Yugosh
