The project is designed to enhance unified access to health and social-economic information for the vulnerable people and increase their usage of digital media and take up leading role in influencing the policies and counter act on the social injustice that heavily affect people with disability. The project website will be developed and it will house online audio, video and article publications. weekly outreach events, will be encourage to sensitize on the use of our online media website. The project will teach and encourage use of digital media amongst the disabled people
Topical focus:
Country:
What locality or neighborhood will your project focus on?
Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Blantryre
Describe the specific population with whom you will be working.
The project targets youths between the ages of 10 to 35 who are disabled. Internet and computer usage amongst the disabled people is very low in Malawi partly due to luck of efficient information dispersion on the technical know-how, as well as high costs attached to accessing these assets and services in Malawi. This project has been cordially designed along side the beneficiaries in order to give direct specific practical challenges and experiences. Life being a precious thing has to be cherished regarless of ones condition
Who else will be on your team to help implement the project?
Project Manager:Maganizo Kruger Nyasulu www.facebook.com/mknyasulu
Partnerships and Communications Officer: Chimwemwe Kapala – www.facebook.com/chimwemwe.kalapa
What kinds of news, stories and other content will be created?
The project deeply concentrates on building capacity on health and social economic activities to the disabled by use of audio, video and articles. Amongst the contents include empowering people with disability on preventive measures on various infections as well as empowering them to build their financial muscle by encouraging entrepreneurial spirit and display their talents. All their proceedings will be freely advertised through Pamodzi media. Overall the activities in this project will be on how to enhance the utilization of the digital media by making all the contents of our programs user friendly (By translating them in sign-language and making audio files smaller to reduce the amount of bytes one has to load to listen)
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.
Global Hope Mobilization works in partnership with MACOHA (Malawi Council of Handicapped) a statutory body of the Malawi government on projects that empower disabled people who are in their reproductive ages to access their health needs easily by creating mobile push bikes and training medical staff on sign language to easily treat people with hearing problems.
How many participants do you think will be trained in your project?
The project will train 500 direct beneficiaries and the online program is expected to reach more than 200,000 beneficiaries.
Refresher courses to the initial 500 trained people will be encouraged to ensure sustainability. Monitoring and evaluation programs employed by the program manager will ensure the sustainability as well. Above all the activeness of the Partnerships and Communications Officer in securing strong partners and enhancing the marketing of the media will ensure sustainability of the project
Describe which technologies, tools, and media you will focus on when training participants.
Mobile phones will be highly utilized because access to Computers is very costly. All the audio podcast, digital videos, and articles that are posted on the project website will be easily accessed by logging into the website platform using mobile phones. Short Messaging service (SMS) will be key for those who are deaf and can not access a video on their handset. Using an open source application called frontline SMS.
Describe the facilities where you will hold the workshops.
The project will select 30 volunteers (Priority will be on the disabled) 10 from each of the three regions of Malawi and hold an online training using google.com hungout. These volunteers will be used to spread the news about Pamodzi Media in all institutions that host people with disabilities as well as in rural areas that surrounds them. The key facilitators will be the officials from our partners MACOHA. This training will demand four computers and three projectors, and internet connection. the training will utilize library materials at a hiring price to hold the activity.
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?
As a director of programs at Global Hope Mobilization I supervise the department that directly concentrate on addressing the needs of the handicapped. Therefore our project which are active on the ground makes us ideal project implementors. Our long term goal is to ensure there is uniform access to information to both the handicapped and the general public. This will reduce the levels of discrimination that are showcased in most of our programs that we implement targeting the handicapped.
What specific challenges do you expect to face when planning and implementing your project?
The main challenge will be from the beneficiaries themselves of they do not accept this project then there will be a high risk of not progressing well in the project implementation.
Except this, one other challenge is the availability of the strong internet network connection and types of phones that most of our beneficiaries have if they support internet.
How will you measure and evaluate the project’s impact, specifically: your primary participants, the wider regional community, or the global digital community?
The project will use a feedback mechanism on every activity implemented to check how interactive the program aired or posted has influence people. Most of our activities will be derived from case studies and real life stories from handicapped people. SMS system will record all the participants involved and their feedbacks. All the feedback will be be linked to the indicators of the project; which are number of people reached; number of people who provided their opinions; level of impact that the program has on their lives.
If your project were to be selected as a Rising Voices grantee, what would be the general timeline of project activities in 2014?
Six Months from June 2014 to December 2014.
Detail a specific budget of up to $2,500 USD for operating costs.
Digital Camera – 500
Internet – 360
Website development and Hosting – 100
Procurement of Personal Computer – 475
Voice Recorder – 50
Rent for hiring training Materials for the 30 volunteers – 50
Four outreach activity to rural areas
– Fuel – 300
– Lunch and Refreshment for Trainers – 170
– IC materials Hire – 120
– IEC Materials – 340
Besides the microgrant funding, what other support can Rising Voices provide for your project to ensure its success?
Provision of reference letters which we can present to other potential partners and funding organizations to scale the project further.
Offering guidance on whom we can partner with.
Contact name
Maganizo Kruger Nyasulu
Organization
Global Hope Mobilization